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CAMPS IN THE EOCKIES. 



CAMPS IN THE EOCKIES. 



BEING A NARRATIVE OF LIFE ON THE FRONTIER, AND 

SPORT IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, WITH AN ACCOUNT 

OF THE CATTLE RANCHES OF THE WEST 



WM. AY baillie-geohma:n', 

'' K.O.E.H.','* 

AUTHOE OF "IIKOL AND THE TYROLESE," " GADDINGS WITH A PEIMITITB 
PEOPLE," ETC. *, 



Member of the Aljpine Chib. 



WITH AN ORIGINAL MAP BASED ON THE MOST RECENT U.S. GOVERNMENT SURVEY. 



I^JEW EDITION. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1884 






OOPTBIGHT, 1882, BY W. 1. B11L1IE-6E0H1CA*. 



By Transfer 

0. C. Public Mbrary 

JUN 2 8 1940 



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AUU 1 lw2 




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When the outspoken frontiersman happens to be bored by 
a stranger, and desires to rid himself of his unwelcome 
company, he will address him with his usual drawl : 
" Say, Mister, are you aware that nobody is holding 
you?- 

In laying before the reader an humble record of several 
little expeditions to some of the least known portions of 
the Rocky Mountains, I shall have to ask him to camp, to 
use another Western expression, on the trails of all sorts of 
beasts and uncouth characters ; the least interesting and 
decidedly the most monotonous of these tracks will, I am 
afraid, be those of the irrepressible "Ego." For this 
personage, and for all his faults, I have to claim the 
good-natured reader's indulgence, and I hope that, 
remembering the good old adage of noblesse oblige^ he will 
not suit the action to the above bit of very savage frontier 
humour, by summarily ridding himself of his company. 

Having spent, for the last two-and-twenty years, all my 
leisure in the uplands of Europe, after an early training 
in the sport of the chamois and deer stalker — killing my 



vi Preface. 

first deer in the Alps before I wa£ ten years old — I had 
long wished to make the acquaintance of the great Moun- 
tain System of the New World/ the home of such lordly 
game as the grizzly, the bighorn, and the wapiti — the 
latter our own stag, produced on a wholly magnified, one 
might say American, scale. Three years ago this wish 
was consummated, and the fact of my having returned 
for a fourth visit to the Western hunting-grounds needs 
no further comment. 

Portions of *' Camps in the Rockies " have been pre- 
viously published in the ^' Field/* where they mostly 
appeared with the signature ^'Stalker,'* and in the 
'* Fortnightly Review/' and '^ Time/' and I have to thank 
the respective Editors and Proprietors for their courteous 
permission to republish them in their present shape. 

For many details on my map, I am indebted to Mr. 
S. F. Emmons and Mr. W. H. Holmes, two chief officials 
of the United States Government Greological Survey, 
through whose kindness I have had access to the Hayden 
Survey Publications for purposes of compilation. 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS. 



PASS 

Pbeface ••ii,...i,,v 

CHAPTEE I. 
An Inteoductoey Camp ...••••! 

CHAPTER IL 
Camps on the Way • i • 33 

CHAPTER III. 
Life in Camp • « • 52 

CHAPTER IV. 
Our Dumb Feiends in Camp .<•••• 87 

CHAPTER V. 
Camps among Wapiti . . . « , , . . 112 

CHAPTER VI. 

Camps on the Trail of the Bighoen . i « ; 154 

CHAPTER VIL 
Camps on Timbeeline ..«••••• 182 



viii Contents, 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Camps in the Teton Basin . . » i i » 205 

CHAPTER EL 
Beavee Camps • \ \ '• 233 

CHAPTER X, 
Indian Camps and Wintee Camps , ♦ 4 \ \ 261 

CHAPTER XI. 
Camps in the Cantons of the Coloeado • » • • 296 

CHAPTER XIL 
Camps in Cowboy Land . . • • • • * 320 

CHAPTER XIIL 
Westeen Reminiscences ««.«••• 365 

Appendix «.,,»,»»•• 397 



CAMPS IN THE EOCKIES. 



CHAPTER I. 

AN INTRODUCTORY CAMP, 

Our Outfit — Western air and Western cities — A bad start — "Different 
ways of visiting the West — My companions — The people and their 
ethics — Three chief qualities, and what they have accomplished. 

On a bright^ breezy June morning a couple of years ago, 
a motley "outfit/^ consisting of three men, a boy, a huge 
four-horsed, canvas-covered waggon laden with provi- 
sions for six months, and some thirty or forty head of 
horses, was on the eve of starting for the Rocky Mountains 
from a certain Western ''city'^ situated on the elevated 
table-land of Wyoming. 

*' Outfit,'^ it may at once be mentioned, is an expressive 
Western term, covering every imaginable human, animate, 
and inanimate being or article. The Missourian speaks of 
his wife and little ones as the outfit he left behind him 
when he came West. The Plainsman calls a funeral or a 
wedding, his domestic kitchen utensils or his rifle, " that 
yer outfit.^'' The Western hunter will tell you he never 
knew one of " them thar English lord chaps' ^ outfits,^ them 

B 



2 Camps in the Rockies, 

top-shelfers who come oyer a' hunting, to be without ' bear« 
coated wipes ' (rough towels), rubber baths^ string-shoes 
(laced boots), and a corkscrew in their pocket-knives." 
The single occasion I ever heard of that production of 
civilization,, a lady^s maid, penetrating into the more ap- 
proachable Western wilds, an old trapper — -who, happening 
to observe that the woman, in the absence of side-saddles, 
was riding her horse in man's fashion — asked me whether 
" them outfits as I heerd called lady maids always straddle 
their horses ? ^' 

Ours, for the author is one of the three men, is an out- 
fit that has nothing of the top-shelf about it. Two of the 
pack-horses carry bundles of rusty iron beaver- traps ; the 
saddles and harness on the work-horses are wonders of 
patching and raw-hide home manufacture. The men's 
wardrobe — at least what little they have on their bodies 
this sunny June morning — displays a similar acquaintance 
with trapper tailoring as does the leather work with 
trapper harness-making. There is, however, a very work- 
manlike, '^ready-for- all-emergencies '■' air, about the little 
caravan. The rifles carried across the saddle-bows are 
bright and shining with constant handling; the faces, at 
least of three of the party, are as brown as chestnuts ; and 
their conversation smacks of the wilds they have but left 
to re-provision and to meet their old boss. 

They and I are old friends, for it is not my first expedi- 
tion of this kind. Five or six months before, in the dead 
of a Rocky Mountain winter, I had returned from a like 
trip — my second one — as ragged, unkempt, and disrepu- 
table-looking a being as ever '^ran his face" among a 
civilized community, and got ^' policed " as a cut-throat. 
In the Cunarder's ferry-boats I had sped to Europe and 



An Introdtictory Camp, 3 

back ; and now once more, with my old companions, we are 
about to foist ourselves on bountiful Nature, to ^^ grub and 
board " where food and houseroom are free, and where the 
alien is as welcome as the copper-coloured native. 

The sun has been up two hours, when, after a great deal 
of business-like bustle, the final " All set ! " from the mouth 
of genial Port, the leading spirit of the expedition, rings 
out. " All set ! ■'^ echoes from each of the horsemen in 
front and in the rear of the waggon, and with this West- 
ern " All right ; go ahead ! " the little party bids good- 
bye to civilization, and begins to move north-westward. 
It is a broad high-road, scarcely less than 800 miles in 
width, with the bright sun as our guide, for on the vast 
ocean of land we are about to cross we shall be days — or 
rather, weeks— before catching sight of more definite land- 
marks. 

The next town north-westward of us is " Vay up '^ in 
Montana, 600 miles or more ofi"; but we are not steering 
for it. We are glad to turn our backs on that one yonder, 
and we hope not to set foot into a street for at least six 
months; indeed ''if," as Port expresses himself, "we go 
light on the flour, we needn't for the next nine months." 

Whatever may be the demerits of the West in the eyes 
of some, no one has ever dared to question the amazingly 
inspiriting qualities of the atmosphere of these trans- Mis- 
sourian highlands. Dry and sparkling as perhaps none 
other on the globe, it seems to be composed not of one- 
fifth, but of five- fifths of oxygen. As your cit3''-worn 
lungs inhale it, fresh life is infused into your whole being, 
and you feel that it is air which has never before been 
breathed. 

The following fact speaks for its recuperative qualities. 

B 2 



4 Camps in the Rockies. 

An American friend, tlie victim of a pulmonary disease 
of long standing, two years ago took my advice and went 
West. His guide, whom I happened to meet some time 
afterwards, informed me that when the invalid engaged 
his services " he was kinder coffiny-looking ; that he ap- 
peared to walk ahout only to save funeral expenses." Three 
weeks later, according to the same authority, it was a 
pleasure to see him, with a crippled bear after him, barking 
up a tree " as if every darned thing on him, boots and all, 
wanted to climb ^' — a statement partially confirmed by the 
hero, who has perfectly recovered. Its wonderful effect 
upon men's animal spirits have been compared to that of 
champagne, without its headaches and blues; with the 
further difference, that this rejuvenating fillip is enduring 
and health-endowing. You seem to be growing younger, 
not older ; and you begin to understand the plainsman's 
opinion of it, when he told you that out West men take 
twice as much killing, and horse- thieves have to hang five 
minutes longer than anywhere else. 

I had travelled five or six thousand miles on end as fast 
£\s steam would take me : an exceedingly bad sailor, the 
I'acket of five nights and five days in the train had not 
j'emoved the cobwebs from my inner man. What nought 
else in so short a time could have accomplished, four-and- 
twenty hours in this bright atmosphere, and a glorious 
night^s rest under buffalo skins — or robes as they are called 
in America — with the sky for a roof, had brought about. 
Mounted on my old favourite ^' Boreas," the slow but 
sure prince among mountain shooting-ponies, my '^Ex- 
press " slung over my back,^ I cantered along ; the keen, 

^ The frontiersman when on horseback usually carries his rifle in front 
of hira across the Mexican saddle, attached by a simple leather arrange* 



An Introductory Camp, 5 

crisp breeze sweeping over tlie plains from the yet invisible 
Bocky Mountains, puffing out my loose flannel blouse-sbirt, 
life on that fresh June morning seemed again quite worth 
living for. 

There Is nothing about the landscape, except Its treeless 
barrenness^ to indicate that we are 7000 feet and more 
above the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There are no 
mountains to be seen, and neither trees nor shrubs are 
visible. Behind us lies the mushroom matchboard 
*' city/^ as direly forsaken by nature's beautifying hand 
as is the scenery surrounding it. In the middle of arid 
highland barrens — which, measured from their northern 
to their southern, from their eastern to their western, 
extremities, are just thirty times the size of England — 
there is an indescribable crudeness about this bubble 
attempt of man to leave his mark on Nature^s vastness. 
The glare of the intensely bright light beats down with 
searching brilliancy upon the city^s grotesque unplc- 
turesqueness. Around us, in front of us, at our side, is the 
immeasurable nothing of the sagebrush desert. The 
streets of the settlement begin in it, and end in it with 
the same startling abruptness. Built yesterday — inhabited 
to-day — deserted to-morrow, is written on everything. 
Some of the dwellings indeed have already reached that 
last stage; roof-and-wlndowless cabins, they have about 
them a pathetic look of woebegone desolation ; for while 
among other surroundings the ruin of a log-cabin can at 
least claim a certain picturesqueness of decay, the same 
sight on the Plains of the West carries with it all the 

ment to the " horn " — a position which in my eyes is more riskful thac 
slung over one's back, for the first tumble with your horse is liable to 
snap the slender English stock ; and then — where are you ? 



6 Camps in the Rockies, 

suggestive signs of human misfortune, and instinctively 
one passes in mental array the hundred-and-one catas- 
trophes by which possibly the dwelling was rendered 
tenantless. But such thoughts cannot live in the sparkling 
life-giving air of the West. A bright future — as bright, I 
hoped, as the past I spent in those wilds I was now bent 
for — is looming up. But steady ; not quite so fast, my dear 
sir. Before you can taste all the promised delights in the 
yet distant sportsman'^s idyl, you have to get there. Four 
hundred and fifty -miles — five long dreary weeks' travel, 
replete with the minor ills of the Plains, will try the 
patience of man and beast. Did not, when I was purchas- 
ing our stores the previous day, the keen-eyed, tobacco- 
chewing vendor, with pitying compassion in his voice, 
solemnly conjure me to sink capital in various luxuries in the 
tinned meat and canned fruit and vegetable line ? "For,** 
as he added, '^you^ll find it all-fired mean travelling this 
season. We ain't had such a dry spring since this yer town 
was started.'-' Did not the spirit merchant, while furiously 
masticating his quid, and playfully invoking the most 
familiar dwelling-places of evil spirits, exclaim in accents 
of profound amazement, " Say, mister, you surely don^t 
mean to start out on a six months' trip at this darned dry 
season with only a five-gallon keg of whis-key, and four 
of you to drink it ? " But my men and I knew too much 
of Western " tangle-leg '' and its vile poisonous qualities. 
That good old '^ cowboy ^' saying, which tells you that one 
drink of it tempts you to steal your own clothes, two 
drinks makes you bite ofi* your own ears, while three will 
actually make you save your drowning mother-in-law, was 
not invented for us ; " for," as Henry the boy cook 
quizzically put it, " our clothes arn't worth stealing, qui 



An Introdtictory Camp, 7 

ears are too big and too tough, and our outfit ainH got 
no mother-in-laws about it/^ 

So, forewarned, but not forearmed, we start for our 
distant goal. But, as is the case in most similar under- 
takings, first days are apt to be lost days. We bad not 
got out of sight of the ^' city '■' when we were reminded 
of this. 

'^Dog-garn them horses !^^ a loud voice exclaims ; a 
lightning-like streak of the long ^^ black-snake '^ whip 
accompanying the words ; and plunging madly forward as 
they hear the dreaded ^^ whiz,^^ the two 'restive leaders in 
the team have broken the coupling chains ; and with the 
link-bars jingling and clattering at their heels, they are 
00", tearing over the sagebrush desert, as genuinely 
stampeded two bronchos as you can wish to see. 

The next instant the whole train is in dire confusion. 
The little band of as yet perfectly unbroken horses, round 
whom one of the men and the boy have been incessantly 
circling, herding them in with whip and voice, have taken 
the alarm ; and, kicking up their heels, have done, like- 
wise. The pack-horses in front of them, " bossed along '' 
by me, have, notwithstanding my frantic efforts, followed 
the example, for most of them are as fresh as frisky 
three-year-olds, and a long spring, spent in perfect 
liberty on their range, has made them unused to tight 
girths and to the rattle of sundry pans and pots about 
their packs. The}^ are now streaking it over the plains ; 
tails flying, and bucking off their loads in fine style. 
Except our three saddle-horses and the two staid old 
wheelers, not a horse remains. Dispersed in forty odd 
different directions, we have only the cold comfort of 
knowing that they are probably still somewhere in the 



8 Camps in the Rockies. 

100,000 square miles of Wyoming. No time, howeverk 
is wasted ; for those horses must soon be caught, or, 
fresh as they are, they will roam — goodness knows where 
to. The wheelers are taken out ; one is turned out loose, 
the other is mounted, bare-back, by the driver, and we 
are off. Two take this side ; the other, that side, pf the 
59,588,480-acre paddock. 

Five minutes later, the old waggon is standing there 
forlorn and forgotten — a sad picture of the vicissitudes of 
Western life. 

Late in the afternoon, two of the party return. The 
boy and I managed to gather in the pack-horses and the 
two leaders, who, not quite so wild as the unbroken 
horses who have never had a saddle on their backs, have 
not run so far. Tired, dust-begrimed, hungry and thirsty, 
we get back to the stranded ^' prairie-schooner,^^ i.e. the 
waggon. The rest of the afternoon and long evening is 
passed in collecting the packs bucked off by the brutes, 
and which are strewing the Plains — here a bundle of 
traps, there the fifty-pound iron powder-keg, yonder the 
whiskey -cask j and a few hundred yards further, the two 
strong, raw-hide sacks containing the cooking utensils and 
table-ware. As everything is of sound, solid, enamelled 
cast-iron, the typical " This side up, with care,''' anxiety 
of anxious housewives, is not one of the ills to which we 
are heir. 

Leaving the waggon where it is, we return to the 
spring from whence we started that morning. 

It is quite dark by the time the pungent smoke from 
the sagebrush camp-fire has subsided, and our primitive 
supper of bacon and corn is finished. The absentees have 
not yet returned. ^' As bad a break as ever I sees. Boss," 



An Introductory Camp, 9 

remarks Henry, '^ and no two waj^s about that.^* *' Guess 
them doggarned hordes have funeralized ns all-fired 
meanly ; shouldn't wonder if the whole outfit has gone 
back to their old range, hundred and fifty miles south/'' 
And, to cut a long story short, the " darned mean cusses " 
did return to their home range, one of the men going in 
pursuit, while Port returned the next morning; and we 
made another start of it, leaving the other man, with his 
flying column, of unbroken stock, to catch up with us as 
best he could. 

While we are waiting for the men at our smouldering 
camp-fire, let me introduce the most prominent person- 
ages of these pages, and say a few words on the raison 
cVetre of my presence in a trapper outfit. 

There are three ways of visiting the Far West, either for 
pleasure or for sport. The orthodox mode, to which only 
I'ich men can aspire, is at present also the most usual 
manner, for as a rule none but men of more than indepen- 
dent means visit trans-Missourian countries for pleasure. 
Tlie frontiersman calls them, as we have heard, '' top- 
shelfers;'^ they are accompanied by their servants from 
England, they hire some Western " hunters '^ as guides, 
and tlieir expedition is provided with an amazingly com- 
plete camping outfit. They are asked very high wages 
■ — and they })ay them. 

The second way is cheaper, but far less independent. 
It is to get letters to, or, if you chance to be of command- 
ing personal attractions, endeavour to make friends with, 
the ofiicers in charge of such of the frontier military forts 
that are near good game ground. There are many of this 
kind in the northern Territories ; and there, if properly 
introduced, you will meet with rare hovspitality, and 



lo Camps in the Rockies, 

readiness to further your object ; you will be supplied with 
stores^ waggons, horses, troopers — everything you want. 
The American officers, notwithstanding the weary loneliness 
of their desolate posts, hundreds of miles from the nearest 
companionable being, are as a rule no sportsmen, but they 
will nevertheless enter with zest into your plans ; and if 
they see that their presence is not unwelcome, one or the 
other of them will accompany you on your little shooting 
expeditions, and will make a very welcome addition in the 
number of mouths to be fed with venison, and hence also 
to the number of wapiti or bighorn you can legitimately 
kill. There will be plenty of whiskey — indeed, very often 
its supply is far too abundant; and on returning to camp 
from a long day's stalk, you now and again find the cook 
or the other underling troopers in a state not conducive 
to good cooking or handy service. 

The third is the cheapest, the freest, the most pleasant 
manner provided its rough sides have no terrors for you. 
It is to eschew the usual run of Western guides, who take 
their parties year after year over to the same well-beaten 
ground, and to choose for your companions regular trappera 
or fur-hunters. 

I hare tried all three ways. My first trip, on which I 
was accompanied by a friend, partook of the top-shelfer's 

tfit. We were laden down with unnecessary camp 
luxuT'ies, stored away on two waggons. I shot very little 
game, I saw the people as they are not ; and owing to 
tliat very bad habit of asking questions, I was told more 
tall stories than the proverbial Colonel from Texas could 
invent in a year, for, as the frontiersman will himself 
tell you, the West is a country where ^'talk is cheap 
and lies worth nothing.^' Had it not been that on 



An Introductory Camp, II 

this trip I made the casual acquaintance of my future 
companion^ genial Port, there would not have been a 
single redeeming feature about my first experience. The 
second manner had never very great attractions for me ; 
though at a considerably later period I had occasion to be 
one of a party of three Englishmen_, who have every cause 
to remember the remarkable hospitality of the commanding 
officers in a certain Wyoming fort, who fitted us out in 
right royal style, with men, horses, waggons, and escort, 
enabling us to visit the Ute Indian country in the depth of 
a very severe winter. Far more preferable is the third 
way, i.e. to join a trapper outfit, and at a cost which, 
under the circumstances, and in comparison to the 
ten or fifteen pounds per diem cost of many ^' top- 
shelfer ^* expeditions, must be called exceedingly moderate, 
turn, for all intents and purposes, trapper yourself. 
Only the most remote districts are visited by the genuine 
fur-hunters — by no means a numerous class ; for the much- 
persecuted beavers and other valuable far-bearing animals 
have long retired to the few uninvaded districts, and 
there only can they be found in paying numbers. You 
enjoy the good-fellowship of thoroughly trustworthy men ; 
and while they do their trapping or wolf-poisoning, you, 
who are tacitly considered the '^ boss," or master, and are 
also addressed as such, can roam about at your own free 
will, gradually extending your expeditions as you become 
versed in the necessar}^ art of woodcraft. Of course, for 
the newly arrived " tenderfoot '^ this roaming about, and 
not losing himself or getting into other more awkward 
dilemmas, necessitates some preliminary experience in 
woodcraft. But this, under the tuition of the very capable 
trapper-masters, is, if he has had previous training in 



12 Camps in the Rockies, 

otheir parts of tlie world, soon acquired ; and when once 
mastered, the pleasure of knowing himself perfectly inde- 
pendent will vastly enhance the charm of life in the woods 
and in the mountains. 

But it is not every sportsman fresh from the East or 
from Europe, who has either the time, opportunity, or 
desire to hunt for men of this stamp. The Union Pacific 
lands him at Cheyenne or Denver ; and while in his in- 
nermost soul he hides a feeling of defrauded curiosity at 
not finding dead men lying about the streets and festoon- 
ing the odd trees about the town, he expects to fall into the 
arms of a revised edition of a Bridger, Kit Carson, or old 
Joe Clark. At the first glance, perhaps his disappoint- 
ment on this score is not so great ; for the modern repre- 
sentatives of those old scouts of classic renown who forth- 
with interview him in front of the hotel bar, are got up in 
embroidered buckskin suits, broad sombreros, cartridge 
belts, and a six-shooter at th.e waist. Their hair is long, 
and their name some startling imitation of " Buffalo Bill^' 
or ^' Wild Will." They tell him they are old Indian fighters, 
who know the whole West as they know their pockets. 

I can, alas ! speak from experience of the wiles and of 
the traps that wayla}^ the newly-arrived sportsman ; for I 
was green, very green, w^hen I first crossed the Missouri, 
and hence 1 fell a singularly easy prey to certain ^^Bearclaw 
Joes " and *^ Scalp Jacks.'"' 

As a warning to others, I ma}^ relate how I was taken 
in, for my tale will also give an idea of the manner and 
ways of getting up such names. Out West, everj^thing, 
from a mining stampede to the achievement of making a 
particular whiskey saloon a favourite wdth the public, 
requires ^' getting up ;" and names fare no better. 



An Introductory Camp. 13 

I was fresh from England, for the four or five months 
I had spent in New York, Newport, and other Atlantic 
resorts, could hardly be called a proper schooling for the 
West. Let the Western town where the following inci- 
dent occurred, be nameless. During my fortnight's stay 
I had interviewed more than a dozen of so-called hunters^ 
who came up to offer me their services — and get a free drink. 
One of them was especially taking, and the most startling 
adventures had " camped on his trail " from the time he 
left his mother^s lap. Indian fighting, bear shooting, and 
elk and buffalo slaughtering, from the Saskatchewan to 
the Panhandle, had been his lifers vocation. Naming 
certain regions I desired to visit, he claimed to be inti- 
mately acquainted with every Indian trail that crossed 
the densely timbered district. I am not sure that I should 
not finally have been tempted to engage the great hunter, 
had not a sudden denouement taught me a very salutary 
lesson. 

The buckskin suit, the broad Texan hat, no less than 
the long hair that fell down to his shoulders, were all as 
greasy as became a great Indian fighter ; but I remarked 
that his sporting accoutrement was decidedly new, and 
had evidently seen but little wear and tear. The pon- 
derous cartridge belt round his waist was as brand-new 
from the saddler^s shop as his big six-shooter and Win- 
chester rifle from the gunmaker's. Nailed to the stock of 
his rifle were the front claws of a grizzly, and on my 
making some cautious inquiries respecting it, and the 
name by which he had introduced himself to me — *' Bear- 
claw Joe"" — he proudly informed me, that though he had 
had that rifle but a short time, it had already annihilated 
the biggest bear in the Territory, a fierce hand-to-claw 



14 Camps in the Rockies » 

fight haviijg preceded the monster's demise. During the 
terrible combat the bear had got the stock between his 
jaws, and the dents the man proceeded to show me on his 
weapon — but which, I innocently thought^ looked more 
like harmless hammer marks — were the result, which led 
his comrades to give liim that name. Knowing something 
of bears in other parts of tlie world, serious doubts began 
to rise in my mind that the oft-repeated stories of the 
terrible ferocity of the grizzly were sad exaggerations, and 
my adventurous ardour to add this prize to my list of slain 
became grievously dampened. However, fortunately for 
the reputation of old Ephraim, the dead '' give away " that 
was in store for the bad man who ventured to impugn the 
ferocity of his kind, removed the shadowy blemish from his 
character. " Bearclaw Joe '^ and I were walking through 
the streets of the town, when we happened to pass one of 
the five or six meat and game shops the town boasts of. 
On a strong iron hook attached to the outside hung the 
carcass of a big grizzly. Naturally I was interested in the 
sight, and stopped to examine the slandered one's corpse. 
My companion seemed in a hurry, and when finally I 
pointed out that the bear's forepaw had been cut off, his 
haste to get away increased. Everything, however, would 
have passed off unsuspected had not, just as we were 
turning away, the owner of the shop come to the door, and 
addressed my companion in words which, somewhat toned 
down, ran as follows : '^ You cussed bull- whacking son of 
a dog ! what in Texas did you mean cutting off that er' 
forepaw last night ? Neighbour S. saw you do it, you 
Texas-begotten steer-smasher ! " What would have fol- 
lowed had my friend " stayed with him " I know not ; 
but fortunately the next corner was put between the two 



An Introductory Camp, 15 

in the shortest of time, while the greasy locks of the thief 
streaming behind him were the last I saw of noble " Bear- 
claw Joe/^ On making inquiries, I learnt that the great 
hunter was nothing but a bull-whacker (teamster), and 
had been led to lay aside for a season his bull-persuading 
*^ black snake '^ whip, tempted by the big wages he could 
make "trundling tender feet outfits through the country ! '^ 

The genuine trapper is a very diflPerent being to the 
usual run of these self-constituted guides. You can 
generally know him by his unobtrusive and taciturn 
manners in the presence of strangers. 

Of the old guard of famous Rocky Mountain ^^Fur 
company " voyageurs there are but very few left ; the two or 
three I know are grizzly septuagenarians. The present race 
are younger men, who have passed a long apprenticeship 
under old veterans. The genuine trapper one very rarely 
meets in towns or other haunts of frontier civilization. 
They are out all the year round, visiting outlying settle- 
ments only every six months, to get their stores (provisions). 
Many of them have not slept in a bed for fifteen or twenty 
years, and they love not the luxuries of civilization, living 
, a life as independent of social fetters as it is well possible 
to imagine. Very few of them ever marry ; and death, 
which has stared them in the face times out of number, 
finally surprises them, in the shape of scalp-hunting red- 
skins or a fierce eight-day snowstorm in a shelterless 
region, or an infuriated she-grizzly, or in any one of the 
many other guises in which the grim master is wont to 
call in the lonely hunter^s checks. Few miss them ; and 
when one fails to put in his appearance at the frontier 
store where in spring and autumn he was in the habit of 
purchasing his modest " grub outfit,'^ a casual "Guess the 



1 6 Camps in the Rockies, 

old stag Las gone up !" and a regretful sigh on tlie part 
of tlie enterprising owner of the general emporium, where 
the unworldly old buck used to trade his valuable peltry 
for third-class flour and adulterated cofi'ee, will be about 
all that mankind can spare for the wanderer. 

Among the rough and uncouth champions of the 
wilds, beneath a very shaggy exterior there are hidden 
many of the large-hearted qualities of ideal man in his 
primitive state. You find among them men — ^true men — 
on whose word 5^ou can build, and on whose quiet, cool- 
headed though subdued courage you can implicitly depend. 
Happily not a few of our best sportsmen who well know 
the West have on different occasions stood up for the 
sterling stuff of the genuine frontiersman. 

Port, the leading spirit in our party, is such a man — > 
about thirty -four years of age, tall, squarely built, with 
very sound bodily strength, and as sound constitution, 
which, as he will tell you, not even the two nights he 
slept in a proper bed in eleven years have succeeded in 
undermining. His face is tanned to a Sioux brownish- 
red ; and a fine beard, kept very cleanly, hides the lower 
portion of his pleasant features. A glance at the outer 
shell, a look into the grey-blue eyes, betray the character 
of the man before you. Yery silent in the presence of 
strangers — always a good sign in this Western country — his 
appearance pleased me from the first. He was '^ riz '^ in 
AVest Kansas in its earliest days, when the eastern portion 
of that State was the " bleeding Kansas ^' of which twenty 
years ago we heard so much. Settlements were far 
apart ; and the dreaded invasions of the bloodthirsty red 
man, chiefly the Cheyennes, followed by the unheard-of 
ravages of the fiendish white man^s B or der-Roughian War, 



An Introductory Camp. 1 7 

that turned sucli men as Quantrell and the James boj^s into 
beasts more savage than hyenas, made Port from his 
earliest youth acquainted with rapine. 

Before he left his mother^s lap he saw blood shed ; 
before he could walk he saw men strung up and shot; and 
before he could read he had killed his Indian. He left 
his home at the early age of nine ; " going West '' was his 
fancy, and the yet untrodden wilds of the Rocky Moun- 
tains his dream. He passed a loEg trapper apprentice- 
ship under one of the old guard of fur-hunters^ and 
his subsequent career^ as Indian scout in some of the 
most sanguinary Indian wars on the Plains, developed in 
him all those qualities which make him such an invaluable 
companion in a country where certain risks are not absent 
if the party is so numerically weak as ours is. It takes 
moments of danger to discover a man's true grit — the 
" bottom sand/^ as a plainsman would say. On the one 
or two occasions of such a nature, when I happened to be 
at his side, his self-reliant coolness convinced me that in 
times of risk, no less than at the quiet camp fireside^ I 
could have no trustier companion. 

The manliness about Port and other men of his calling 
is not that of the bravado, or that of the '* bad man ■'^ 
of literature ; but the quiet, unobtrusive manliness of a 
character that, while it knows not what pusillanimous 
fear is, yet knows what death is — of a mature that, while 
born and bred to carry life on the open palm, is yet for 
ever ready to do grim battle in its defence. 

Port is full of quiet, dry, hammer and -tongs humour. 
His sallies, in their pointed but good-natured criticism, 
spare neither present nor absent ones. This sparkling 
bantering wit, the happy creation of the moment which 

c 



1 8 Camps in the Rockies, 

when once you Lave bidden good-bye to white woman's 
face, and have exchanged your town garb for that fa* 
more comfortable flannel jumper, has, in its x2Ss^~abandon, 
charms that go hand in hand with the life you lead and 
with the wild scenery about you. 

The two remaining men will take up less space. What 
I have said of Port holds good for Edd and Henry. The 
first of the two is Port^s junior bj^ several years. Born 
in the East, he came West twelve or thirteen years ago, 
and has ever since been hunting and trapping ; though 
the tour under consideration is the only one on which he 
has been in our outfit. 

Henry, the boy cook and general factotum, is a lad of 
seventeen, who has been with me for the two last expedi- 
tions. " Skipping ^^ three years ago his Iowa home, 
where his father, so I am told, holds the position of 
judge, he came West, and luck guided him into Port's 
camp. He is more of a character than Edd, and bids to 
become a genuine old mountaineer in an astonishingly 
short time. Intelligent, full of Western humour, life in 
the wilds has already removed from him the polish of a 
more civilized existence. 

From Master Henry, who, I have strong proofs, is 
much attached to me, it would go hard to get out a 
'^ thank you," except perhaps for some unusual or specially 
gratifying gift; but I cannot say Hike him much the less 
for it. At first I was often exasperated by this habit, 
but the boy soon showed me he meant not what his manner 
implied. 

A ludicrous interview, to which a half-starved ^' cattle 
boss/' who happened to stray into the vicinity of our 
camp and partook of our hospitality, subjected me, shows 



An Introductory Camp. 19 

that ''thank you^^ is, according to the laconic and not 
over polite manners of the West, a superfluous form. The 
meal over, I happened to be left alone with the now good- 
humouredly satiated *' cow-pun<3her." " Say, mister,^^ he 
began, *^ aint you the boss as runs this outfit ? ^' To my 
affirmative answer he replied, "^ Well, say, that's kinder 
strange. Why 111 be darned if j^ou wasn't the only cuss 
who said thank ye when the grub pile was trundled over 
to yer side.'' I told him that I hadn't got over that 
habit yet; to which he naively replied, "Them's bad 
habits of civi-ly-sashon. Out here them tony chin music 
don't pan worth a cent." 

Henry is full of Western repartee. An acquaintance 
once remonstrated with him in quite undeservedly severe 
words for some defective cooking. Being no particular 
favourite among the men, the boy answered him " right 
smartly." *' Wa'al," he said, " I was born for a cook, but 
the devil stole the pattern and ran off with it. I kinder 
reckon he must have loaned it to you." There was no 
more fault-finding. 

An absent one I must not forget, for notwithstanding his 
red skin he proved himself a trustworthy fellow, and, for 
an Indian, a fair hunter. This is " old Christmas " ^ a 
Soshone, who was with us on and off for some time. At 
first he could not praise our camp too highly; it was 
*' boss," " heap good," and ** heap eat, and heap buckskin," 
alluding to the victims of my Express, which, whether elk, 
deer, or bighorn, are all called " buckskin " by Indians, 
and were disposed of by him among his voracious brother- 
hood with an amusing assumption of condescending 
hauteur. All went well, as I say, until we ran out of 
- For obvious reasons, I have had to lengthen hii name by a syllable. 

c 2 



20 Camps in the Rockies, 

grub, and for more tliaii a fortnight had to *' go it '^ on 
meat ^' straight/"'' without bread, coffee, sugar, or salt. 
This was bad, and Done of us felt it more than '^old 
Christmas/' One evening we were sitting round the 
fire, consulting over the dismal outlook — 200 miles to 
the next post, and all the horses " plum played out '^ — 
when Port, in his most serious tone of voice, remarked in 
a sort of stage whisper across the fire to me, ^^ Well, I 
guess we'll have soon to go on old Christmas ^ straight.' " 
Overheard by the red man, as was of course intended, we 
saw a peculiar look spread over his stolid face ; and the next 
morning old Christmas, with his horses, had '^vamoosed."" 
When, months afterwards, we returned to the Agency, we 
found our reputation among the Indians sorely blackened 
by the name they had given us, " The outfit who scare poor 
Indians.^' 

So now, reader, you know my companions. They are 
thoroughly good fellows, genial, and devoted to me ; and a 
pleasant and never broken accord — the paramount con- 
ditions for an undertaking of this kind — has long been 
established between us. 

Before concluding this introductionary chapter, let me 
say a few words on the West general!}^, the people and 
their ethics. 

Mentall}'' and physically, ethnographically and topogra- 
phically the West is a land of experiment. Everything is 
tried and tested — the soil, the climate, and Nature generally, 
no less than man ; his spirit, his endurance, his honesty, 
and his depravity, one and all, are experimented on with a 
ruthless vigour of which it is difficult to form an adequate 
idea. No contrivance can be too new, no idea too original. 
Keverence for old landmarks and time-hallowed institu- 



An Intro dttctory Camp, 2 1 

tions the frontiersman knows not, for there are none of 
these venerable finger-posts to mature civilization. No- 
thing on the face of the broad Earth is sacred to him. 
Nature presents herself as his slave. He digs and delves 
wherever he fancies ; forests are there but to be felled, or, 
if that process be too slow and laborious, to be set ablaze ; 
mountains are made to be honej^combed by his drills and 
sluices ; rocks and hills exist but to be blasted or to be 
spirited away by the powerful jet from the nozzle of his 
hydraulic tube. Landscape itself is not secure, for emi- 
nences may be levelled, lakes laid dry, and the watercourse 
of rivers may be turned ofi", as best suits his immediate 
desires. 

The same hands that tackle nature in such a robust 
though shockingly irreverent manner, show little respect 
for the mandates and dignity of a more orderly social 
condition. They build a church that in weekdays can be 
used as a grain elevator ; and witli the same unceremonious 
haste that a " graveyard " is started, it will, should the soil 
happen to prove rich in precious ores, be turned into a 
silver mine.^ The Western man makes his own laws — not 

' The well-known Deadmau's Claim in Leadville is not the only 
instance of a cemetery being turned into a silver-mine. From a late 
■work on Leadville I take the following details: — "It was winter; 
Scotty had died, and the boys, wanting to give him a right smart 
burial, hired a man for twenty dollars to dig a grave through ten feet 
of snow and six feet of hard ground. Meanwhile Scotty was stuffed 
into a snow bank. Nothing was heard of the gravedigger for three 
days, and the boys going out to see what had happened to him, found 
him in a hole, which, begun as a grave, proved to be a sixty-ounce 
silver-ore mine. The quasi sexton refused to yield, and was not hard 
pushed. Scotty was forgotten, and stajed in the snowbank till the 
April sun searched him out, the boys meanwhile making prospect holes 
in his intended cemetery." 



22 Camps i7i the Rockies. 

a day before the}^ are required ; and he enforces them him- 
self. He is his own judge, father confessor, and execu- 
tioner ; but one and all are mere experiments. The laws, 
the judge, and the sheriff are just as much on their trial 
as the culprit. 

If we look at the result of all this twenty years' experi- 
mentalizing, we see the unfinished rough sketch of a coun- 
try, vast and great, as few ever were, and as none other now 
is — peopled, as would, seem to me, not by the strange med- 
ley of race and temperament as is so often remarked, but 
rather by a community about which there is a singular una- 
nimity of purpose and a startling uniformity of character. 
The Western man is essentially a cosmopolitan in regard to 
the largeness of his ideas and the unprejudiced sympathy 
with the thoughts, manners, and eccentricities of others. Just 
as the tattered garb of the miner hides often some sterling 
qualities of a strong manhood, the whole community, rough 
and unpolished as it appears to the superficial observer, 
comprises the essential characteristics of a great people. 
Good manners are called the final flowers of civilization, 
some say they are the sign of its decay ; and as a clever 
American writer has pointed out, the polishing of a people 
is a slow process. In the case of the Western nation, the 
conditions are of an exceptional kind ; for not only are those 
under which manners are to be formed glaringly new in 
the absence of the traditions of caste and of history, but 
they are doubly new in the addition of the dogma of 
equality. 

There are three very admirable qualities to be found 
in the Western character. The first is the sturdy 
capacity of self-hejp, and genial readiness for mutual 
succour — the latter a concomitant result of the former ; 



An Introductory Camp, 23 

secondly, his alert common sense, leading him to shun and 
to deride the hypocriter and the pretentious : and thirdly, 
the manliness that under all circumstances does honour 
to itself by the uniform respect paid to woman. 

If I add still — what I do with great pleasure — that the 
frontiersman is the most hospitable being imaginable, I 
say not only what is true, but what makes itself pleasantly 
manifest to the stranger. The poorest cowboy or miner 
will exhibit an unselfish and genuinely hearty hospitality, 
such as only can be found in a frontier country, where 
civilization bas not yet managed to cast over the indi- 
viduality of man her gloomy and repellent shroud, of so 
called *^ good manners.^' 

But enough of this tedious generalizing. In the eyes 
of most Englishmen_, and^ in fact, of Europeans who have 
not visited those regions tliemselves^ the West — the ''far'' 
West, I mean — is a very lusty, not to say rowdy country, 
where blasphemy, murder, and swindling are more than 
rife. They judge by what they have read; and their 
opinion would be perfectly justified, were it not that with 
few exceptions authors have seemed to centre their 
attention on the careful collection of as many instances of 
barbarism and crime as their pens could lay hold of, 
thus presenting the country in a most unfavourable, and, 
I am prepared to say, incorrect light. This is perhaps 
bold fault-finding, and hardly compatible with the diffi- 
dence I feel in obtruding my own personal experience 
when it is so strongly at variance with the dictum of far 
abler writers ; but as I am very convinced of its reason- 
ableness, I may perhaps be excused on the ground of 
my more extensive travels and more prolonged sojourn 
among frontier populations. If we look at the list of 



24 Camps in the Rockies. 

books on the West, it is startling to see on wliat very 
short acquaintance many of their authors have put 
pen to paper. There decidedly must be some quite 
irresistible attraction in the solution of the Indian ques- 
tion, and in the fact of filling- pages and chapters with 
homicidal tales ; for there is a singular unanimity in all 
"Western books on that score. A ride across the Continent 
in a stage-coach^ or a fortniglit^s ^' fly^^ about the country 
in a palace car, where they of course never saw a wild 
Indian, seems in many cases to be considered sufficient 
to warrant the expression of very decided opinions on 
what the Indians should do and the white man should 
not — for of course those philanthropic traits that are 
component parts of all great characters mud be aired ; 
and with touching magnanimity they show mercy — on 
paper — at the cost of other people^s scalps. All this has 
contributed to make the word ^' author ''' rather a bye- 
word among Western men, and the being who sports it 
a person to whom it is hardly worth while telling a good 
lie ; anything will do for them ^* inkslinging tenderfeet." 

Seriously speaking, there is, I suppose, no country 
in the world on which so much has been written, based 
on less personal experience. 

If there is anything that the educated American of the 
Atlantic States resents, it is the spirit of patronizing 
protection, oiten exhibited in an unwarrantable manner, 
by English writers when criticizing the ethics of the 
United States. The self-assured Western man, less thin- 
skinned than his Eastern brother, rather enjoys this ; for 
to his keen humour it presents always welcome opportu- 
nity to get olf some good story at the cost of the author. 
There are some good ones abroad, for he is an adept at 



An Introductory Camp, 25 

reading characters ; and to the average frontiersman, 
nothing affords more enjoyable fun than playing on the 
gullibility of strangers. 

It is amazing what questions travellers will ask ; but it 
is very much more amazing what answers they will believe, 
or at least apparently do so, to judge by *' facts ^' in their 
books culled from the mouths of romancing '' bad men/^ 

The late tragic occurrence at "Washington, the work of 
a maniac, infused fresh life into revolver literature, and 
raised another great wave of shooting tales. Quite recent 
authors have given the world a good many pages of 
frightful homicidal stories — not of their own experience, 
but what "oldest inhabitants" and railway-train friends 
told them. 

So far as I can remember, there is not a single one 
among the host of past and present authors on the West 
who ever saw a man either shot or lynched out West ; and 
yet what startling pictures of lawlessness do they not give 
us ! We laugh at the American tourist who at Hol3^rood 
mistakes the butler for the Lord Chamberlain, and in 
Westminster Abbey addresses a chorister as the Dean; 
but surely the mistakes our tourists make are equally 
startling, for they believe very harmless blusterers to be 
desperadoes of the worst type, and that to visit the West 
without a revolver in each coat-tail pocI^:et is risking their 
lives in a very reckless manner. 

Ever^^body, or nearly everybody, has heard of those 
two old Western revolver stories of the divine and the 
English M urist. The one of the eminent divine from New 
England, who travelling in Colorado for his health, one 
day went in search of a barber's shop in a Western city, 
and on entering the establishment observed, it is said, a 



20 Camps in the Rockies, 

big double-barrelled gun leaning against tbe wall. Having 
a constitutional awe of iire-aims, he hastily asked the 
barber if the gun was loaded. A half-shaved native, who 
occupied the chair, turned around his lather -beaten face 
and exclaimed,— 

" Stranger, ef you're in an all-fired hurry, you'll find a 
six-shooter what is loaded in my coat-tail pocket ! " 

The other, the story of an English tourist who proposed 
to visit Arkansas, and asked a citizen if he ought to pro- 
vide himself with a revolver. '* Well," replied the citizen, 
"you mout not want one for a month, and you mout not 
want one for three months ; but ef ever you did want one, 
you kin bet j^ou'd want it almighty sudden ! " 

These are both characteristic emanations of Western 
humour and gross exaggeration, tales which are nowhere 
more zestfully enjoyed than right in the very country 
they belie. The latter is suggestive, and its point may 
well be taken to heart by intending visitors. For three 
very good reasons the tourist should abstain from carry- 
ing about with him these arms, with which he is far 
more likely to hurt himself than anybody else. The first 
is, that as long as he is sober, and does not visit places 
where he has no more business to be than a visitor to Lon- 
don has to frequent Ratcliffe or the slums off the New Cut 
after dark, he will assuredly never want them. Secondl}'", 
if by mingling with bad company, or in consequence of 
visiting places where he should not venture, he should 
require an arm of defence, he will be sadly "left;" for 
long before he could extricate his weapon, the aggressor, if 
he is a Westerner on the shoot, would have emptied his 
six chambers into him. And thi -diy, if this disagreeable 
contingency did occur, on the ground that if he has no 



An Introductory Camp, 27 

revolver tlie man who killed him will in all probability 
have something unpleasant occur to him; while if he has 
onoj let it be even in the remotest corner of his pocket, 
the case is likely to resolve itself into justifiable man- 
slaughter committed in self-defence, and the murderer 
will get off scot free.^ Though the latter is but *' cold- 
mutton'"' comfort, it is at least some satisfaction to know 
that if one does get " rubbed out '' the person who accom- 
plished it will have the same happen to him. 

Were Americans given to write books on travel they 
could, I am very inclined to think, by visiting any Euro- 
pean country — England by no means excluded — in this 
superlatively superficial manner, singling out not the best 
nor the average, but the worst classes of the population, 
furnish, by simply collecting all police court and assize 
reports, a very harrowing calendar of crime. Comparisons 
are odious,, so I will not pursue this theme. Let the news- 
paper-reading critic sketch out for himself such a list, 
ti'hile, for example, undertaking a fanciful journey of say 
7000 miles on end through England. It would contain 
several species of crimes which are entirely unknown in 
the West. On one of my Atlantic crossings a fellow- 
passenger afforded me much amusement. He was a 
W^estern man, who had visited the old world to see 

^ The act of brinj^iri)^ your hand to your hip, where the pistol is 
generally carried, is a gesture warranting a man, in the eyes of aWestern 
jury, to defend himself, and if he kills his adversary it is justifiable 
manslaughter. The act of drawing the pistol first is called getting the 
" drop on you," which is done with marvellous rapidity, leaving un- 
trained hands not the remotest chance of self-defence. I have often 
seen men throw up their hats, then draw their pistol, cock, and 
fire twice, putting two bullets through the hat before it reaches the 
ground. 



28 Camps in the Rockies, 

'*Your old You-rope/' and to exhibit, as lie proudly 
informed me, the first horned frog ever seen in "your 
country/' He was full of quizzical 'cuteness, and some of 
his opinions of Europeans things evinced the peculiar 
sharp wit of the frontier. He had no very high opinion 
of European manhood^ as shown in certain phases of 
crime evincing a total disregard of the fundamental prin- 
ciple of manly regard for woman. ** If all that thar 
kicking and mauling of women whar tu happen out West, 
you bet you'd see an all-fired lot of lynchin' in that 'ar 
section of the country " — words that tallied very con- 
spicuously with my own expeiience of trans-Missourian 
regions ; for I am strongly convinced that without excep- 
tion there is no country where women are treated so 
respectfully as in the West, a criterion that stands, as 
they say, on its own legs. 

Let us look at the Western man in the common walks 
of life. He is, as he will tell you himself, a "'cute man 
of business ; and don't you forget it."" His customers 
make him that. And business with him means the business 
of getting rich as fast as he can — often with policy as his 
honesty. Outside his vocation, in the common relations of 
life he is an uncommonly honest fellow, much more so 
than many men who can claim a far higher degree of 
polish, but to whom mean pettifogging is not a matter of 
abhorrence. 

In the West, a man, as I said, is apt to act as his own 
judge in all personal ofieiices, and also as the executioner 
of his own sentences. There are many varieties of the 
former ; but as, in his self-confident hurry to get rich, he 
has forgotten to build a gaol and provide a police force, 
there is naturally only one species of the latter — he must 



An Introductory Camp. 29 

either ignore or kill. Hence, as men deem life too valu- 
able to jeopardize it for some pettifogging meanness, or 
verbal affront, or slander, they are, as a rale, careful of 
their words and actions. 

If these doctrines of morality, which make men honest 
and civil-mouthed at the point of the revolver, are ethics 
that do not come up to a very ideal standard of man, 
they are, however, usefully practical, and answer their 
purpose remarkably well. In no country in the world is 
there so little bullying, either physically or morally, as 
in the West, for there the turning worm is apt to handle 
his fire-irons just as dexterously as he who would over- 
ride and crush him. 

If a man is "■ drag-a^ino^ on his anchor,^^ either in conse- 
quence of natural affinity to crime, or bad company, or 
drink, with the result that he takes to a criminal life, you 
can be sure he will start into his new career with much 
the same cool daring enterprise as were he building a 
town or a railway. The first horse or mule he stole has 
forfeited his life ; what matters whether far worse crimes 
dye his hands ? He has as much or as little chance to 
escape into some distant district, and hide his identity 
u ider a different name, a broad sombrero, with an ever- 
ready six-shooter to arrest the first unpleasant inquiry, 
whether he has "found a set of horseshoes'' (horse- 
thieving) or whether he has called ^Miands up" to the 
armed guard of a bullion convoy, and, to prove satis- 
factorily that he meant business, has shot two or three 
who stupidly resisted. These are the desperadoes, the 
pet children of literature on the West — personages one 
reads about so much, but somehow never, or at any rate 
very rarely, meets. 



30 Camps in the Rockies, 

Quite apart from this class of criminals, but in close 
connexion with Western ethics, stand the ^'man- 
slaughterers/^ who have killed in " self-defence.'^ Both 
these terms are stretched a good deal beyond their Euro- 
pean meaning. We would call the one a murderer, the 
other murder ; but in doing so we would show our igno- 
rance of the very raison d'etre of frontier life — a condition 
of things upon which the standard of old and well-regu- 
lated communities is not applicable. 

The West rejoices in the absence of" nobs" and "snobs ' 
— worshipped lords and those that worship them ; and the 
spirit, as an American author with some truth remarks, 
which disowns the one and discountenances the other, "is 
not the noisy gascon of uncurbed democracy ; it is the self- 
asserting, prideful scorn that comes of independent power 
and strength." 

The Western man minds his own business, a circum- 
stance grimly paraphrased by Brigham Young's injunction 
to his *' Latter Day Saints.'' ^ 

The qualities of a man stand on their own merits ; he 
falls or rises by them, unabetted in either of these pro- 
cesses by extraneous wealth, family, or condition. We 
can understand, therefore, that the air of the West is a 
frightfully uncongenial atmosphere for vanity and self- 
importance. Airs and *' frills," cant and braggadocia, 
find, as the same writer with truth remarks, no customers. 
The true gentleman is heartily liked, but the swell is as 
heartily hated. They have no objection to good clothes 

* To the men he said: " Keep still and mind j'our own business." 

The women he told : '* If you see a dog run by the door with jour 

husband's head in his mouth, say nothing till you have consulted 
with the Church." 



An Introdttctory Camp, 31 

on the back of men who know bow to wear them without 
ostentation. The dandy — and it is easy to be a dandy in 
the West — strolling through the streets of a mining 
town, is apt to be unpleasantly reminded of this. As 
likely as not he will hear himself hailed, '^ Hold on tha'r, 
stranger ! When ye go through this yer town, go slow, so 
folks kin take you in/^ Or in dry quizzical tones he will be 
asked, " Mister, how much do you ask for it ? '^ ^' For what, 
sir ? ^' " Why, for the town ; you look as if you owned it/'' 

We recently heard how a Scotch Duke visiting the 
West rode on the cow-catcher of a locomotive. Though 
it was not just a thing a Western man would do — at 
least, if he did not get paid for such a purposeless job 
' — it yet evinced such a pleasing aberration from the 
usual gtiffly-starched, brilliantly white cloak of British 
superiority, that the Western people as a man rose, and 
hailed him with acclamation. No act of the traveller 
could have possibly gained him so immediate popularity 
as this experimental ride. 

If ever men have the right to be proud of what ^ they 
collectively have achieved, they are the frontiersmen 
— be thsy miners, railway or town builders, or cattle-men. 
Kothing in the World's history can be compared to the 
creation of the last five-and-twenty years beyond the 
Missouri. Indeed, the Western man has outdone himself. 
In 1865 the astute and much-travelled General Sheridan 
said, when speaking of the unfeasible nature of the first 
great trans-continental line of railway, that '^ he would 
not buy a ticket for San Francisco for his youngest grand- 
child."" Four years later he himself travelled in a 
Pullman car from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast ; 
while to-day there is complete a second line across the 



32 Camps in the Rockies. 

Continent, and three more in a more or less advanced state 
— 20,000 miles of railway being at tlie present moment 
travelled over in the T^est_, where, twenty years ago, there 
was not a single foot of track. 

It is only about thirty- five years since parties of men 
began to cross the Continent, and only about twenty since 
the first emigration to thq Rocky Mountains. It took 
two and a quarter centuries for the descendants of the 
Pilgrims to make their way in force to the Missouri. A 
tenth of those centuries sufficed for the exploration and 
peopling of bj^ far the greater half of the North American 
Continent. 




CHAPTE 



CAMPS ON THE WAY, 



Ills of Plains travel — Exceptional seasons — A Plains fire — A funeral— 
The " Bad Medicine " — Fasting on coffee and bread— A veteran 
meat hunger — Mosquitoes — Final release on Timberline. 

I THINK it is E,uskin "v^ho says there are three material 
things essential to life, and no one knows how to live 
till he has got them ; i.e. pure air^ w^ater, and earth. 
Every one of these three necessaries is remarkably well 
represented in the West. 

The air, as we have heard, is decidedly the purest and 
most invigorating of the globe. There is plenty of water 
— at least in the northern districts ; and as day after day 
we let our eyes roam over the boundless Plains, the super- 
abundance of earth becomes monotonous. Unfortunately, 
however, the two latter are raiely present together. There 
is constantly too much of the one and too little of the 
other, and vice versa. 

I have mentioned that five dreary weeks^ travel ensued 
after our successful second start before we reached our 
goal ; let me touch upon some of the most striking events, 
which, though not one of them was in the least uncommon, 
will give in their tout-ensemble a good idea of the ills of 

D 



34 Camps in the Rockies. 

Plains' travel. In justice, however_, to these mucli reviled 
Plains, I must premise, that the season of 1880 was in 
several ways an exceptional one. On none of our previous 
or subsequent expeditions has Nature placed so man}^ 
obstacles in our path.^ 

The winter of 1879-80 was, out West, a severe and 
long one — though nothing like the next one. Yery much 
snow fell in the Pocky Mountains. Spring, tlie rainy 
time, was, on the Plains that season conspicuous by its 
absence. Winter and snow one daj^ (it snowed near 
Cheyenne, in the first week of June), and great summer 
heat the next. The West is at best a countrj^ of extremes, 
such as we know not in Europe. A variation of 80° or 
90° Fahr. in twelve hours is b}^ no means unusual ; and in 
most parts of Central and Western Wyoming, not a square 
foot of which is lower than 6000 feet over the sea, very 
few summer nights passed that the water in our camp- 
bucket was not coated with a film of ice ; while at noon 
the thermometer in the shade would be up to 85° or 90°. 
In winter the extremes will occasionally be even greater ; 
and in the last winter I was out (1880-81), the cold was 
twice below — 50° Fahr. or some 80° or 85° degrees of frost. 

As a natural consequence of the absence of the usual 
daily rains during several weeks, the grass, the sole ver- 
dure on these elevated highlands,, failed to spring forth, 
and great suffering among the semi-wild cattle that roam 

* I must also mention, that I could have lessened the distance of 
450 miles by nearly half, had I started from a point further West, and 
nearer to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. As it was early in 
the season, 1 desired to look up sotje of the cattle ranches of Wyoming, 
and hence chose a much longer route than was necessary for strictly 
sporting purposes. 



Camps on the Way, 35 

at will over very nearly all those regions, ensued. Tens 
of thousands died for want of water and food. The whole 
country presented a forbiddingly barren and burnt- up 
aspect ; and very soon the great dearth of water^ and the 
meagre growth of parched grass began to tell on our 
horses, obliging us to travel slower every day.^ All the 
streams and creeks rising on the Plains proper " gave 
out,^^ i.e. went dry; while, in perplexing contrast to them, 
the few great rivers traversing the Plains that head or 
have their source in the Pocky Mountains, where vast 
masses of snow were succumbing to the warm June sun- 
shine, were more than bank full. Thus it happened that 
for a week at a time we would suffer from want of water ; 
whereas the next week we would be camped for several 
days on the banks of a great river, such as the Platte or 
Big Wind River, while waiting for the waters to subside 
so as to allow us to ford or swim the foaming torrents 
twenty feet deep and a quarter of a mile broad, which at 
other seasons of the year would be scarce four feet deep, 
and fifty or sixty yards across. 

For days we were a prey to the pangs of thirst, such as 
only is known on the alkaline deserts of the Plains ; 
and were compelled to ride for water from dawn till mid- 
night — to be several times disappointed even then. Dry 
camps, i.e. waterless ones, were frequent ; while at other 
times we had only cattle or buffalo-wallow water to quench 
our thirst. Coffee-making, in these instances, became a 
farce, the natural condition of the liquid resembling that 
beverage in all but smell and taste. 

Port, who had lived in Arizona and New Mexico, where 

* We had taken no grain for the horses with us, as in ordinary 
seasons nobody would think of doing so. 

D 2 



36 ' Camps in the Rockies. 

the scarcity of water develops a keen scent for the remotest 
sign of its presence, proved a wonderful water-finder, 
Holes, often three and four feet deep, had to be dug ; and 
even then the precious liquid would accumulate so slowly 
that it took three or four hours to collect a cupful of water 
for each human and animal being. I need not say what 
weary times those were, w^hen, after thirteen or fourteen 
thirsty hours in the saddle, the two spades or picks would 
have to be taken in turns, and by the light of sagebrush 
torches a water-hole dug. The tired animals, suffering from 
the pangs of fierce thirst, would crowd round us and watch 
the proceedings with intelligent understanding; and when 
the hole was dug, and a camp cup placed in the bottom to 
catch the valuable drops, one of us had to guard it to 
prevent the eager brutes from tumbling into the hole. 
While traversing one of these dreary waterless stretches 
of " droughty " Plains, we got a severe but salutary lesson 
illustrating how easily devastating Plain fires " get out.^' 
We had nooned at a wallow, and when we started again 
the small fire we had made to cook some beans had 
apparently long gone out. We had proceeded about 
two miles, and just were losing sight of the little 
"bottom" where we had camped, when, happening to 
look round, I perceived a huge volume of flam.es envelope 
the spot where we had camped. Fires in the dry season 
are generally serious things, lasting frequently four or 
live months; and though timber, if there is any, is 
per[>>:'tly valueless, they are often very disastrous to 
straggling settlements, but espocialiy to the cattle roam- 
ing over the country. Hence, the Territorial legislature 
has recently put a heavy faie (100/.) and imprisonment 
on the offence of " letting out " plain or forest fires. 



Camps on the Way. 2>7 

Thougli we had already got beyond the last white settle- 
men t_, we were still in cattle land ; and a timbered range of 
mountains eight or ten miles off would assuredly have 
been sacrificed^ had we not resolved^ after a brief moment's 
consultation, to try our best to put it out. Leaving Henry 
with the horses, the two men and I rode back as fast as 
our excited horses could carry us. A very gentle but 
steady breeze was blowing, and long before we got to the 
8cene we heard the crackle and roar of the flames^ spread- 
ing at a great rate among the sagebrush. Dry as tinder, 
and of good size, this shrub of the desert makes about the 
hottest and quickest fire possible. Our saddle blankets 
were the only available article with which to fight the 
flames. But alas ! by the tioae all three were well soaked 
in the copper-coloured wallow w^ater, there was not a drop 
left, and the next water w^as, as we knew^ eighteen miles 
off. Taking the blankets, we rode bareback to the further 
extremity of the conflagration. E/imuing before the wind, 
the flames were leaping onwards very nearly as fast as a 
man can walk. So, to have any chance with what is here 
called counter-burning, we had to begin several hundred 
yards or so ahead. One of us, taking a lighted sagebrush 
in hand, walked along, setting fire to the dense growth, 
while the other two did their best to keep the new fire 
under control by confining it to a strip some twenty or 
thirty feet wide. This was hot work, and had to be done 
very quickly. Three times did we fail to complete the belt 
before the main fire was upon us, coming on with a rush 
and a subdued roar very grand to behold from a safe 
distance, but uncomfortably awkward at close quarters. 
Each time we had to retreat and begin again a con- 
siderable distance ahead. The fourth attempt at last 



38 Camps in the Rockies, 

succeeded, favoured as we were by the lull in the breeze 
usual just before sundown. It was the last effort, for we 
were thoroughly exhausted, and blinded and scorched, 
staggered about like inebriates. It was a close shave, too, 
for the flames of the main fire were within a few yards of 
us when we completed the belt, and the last few seconds we 
were working right in the flames. Half blinded, our hands 
and faces, hair and beards singed, our boots burnt, nothing 
whatever left of our saddle-blankets, two of us minus our 
shirts, which we had torn off to beat out the flames of the 
counter belt, black as negroes, we threw ourselves on the 
ground, too exhausted even to speak. It was nearly dark by 
the time we extinguished the last sagebrush, and long after 
it when we regained our horses. It had taken us several 
hours to master the fire, and as the men expressed them- 
selves, " nothing but a strip of sagebrush country, a mile 
long and a quarter of a mile in width, blackened and 
burnt, to show for it.^' 

That nighf's camp — a dry one, it is needless to say — 
was one of the most uncomfortable ones I remember. Not 
a drop of water to cook, wash, or quench our burning 
thirst. Thereafter we took care that the camp fire was 
out before leaving it. This, on referring to my diary, I 
find, occurred on July 14th. The next day, one of the 
very hottest I can remember to have experienced on the 
PLiins, brought new disaster, in the shape of a stampede 
of the unbroken horses, who in an unguarded moment 
made a break for their home range, now over 300 
miles to the south. Port, by riding down one of his 
favourite saddle-horses, managed to head them off, and 
overtook us with them the following day, coming up to us 
in a grand rush — -the only way a single man can hope to 



Camps on the Way» 39 

drive a band of untrained horses so as to keep them from 
straying. The 17th, 18th, and 19th July were in their 
way also replete with unpleasant experiences. Before I 
proceed to tell them, let me explain how it happened that 
we were then travelling with a heavy waggon and a band 
of more tban perfectly useless wild horses. Both were to 
be left at Porfs isolated ranche, 250 miles from our 
starting-pointj and about half way to our final goal, the 
Big Wind Hiver Mountains, the highest and longest chain 
of the northern Rocky Mountains. The horses Port had 
bought quite recently, and owing to my unexpectedly early 
return, and the fact that no men to drive them for us could 
be hired in the place we started from, we had to do so 
ourselves. We were gradually approaching the place 
where they and the waggon were to be left, and every- 
thing was to be " packed,'^ i.e. carried on sumpter or pack 
horses — a far quicker mode of travelling than with a 
waggon, however amazing be the roughing capacities of 
these conveyances,^ and however wonderful be the skill, 
the daring, and the swearing powers of a \yestern driver. 

Give him a handy six-team, his powerful blacksnake 
whip, and the universe to fill with his Titanic language, 
he will take you, and a light load of twenty or thirty 
hundredweight, across almost any chain of mountains 
there is in the United States or in Europe. 

I have myself crossed very steep mountain ranges 

' The regular Plains-v/ag'gon, of wliich there are several patterns, 
nil of well-known name and repute, are wonders of practical usefulness 
and strength, combined with comparative lightness. Everything 
abo'ot chem— from the very powerful lever brake to the axle-nuts and 
bolts — can be taken asunder with perfect ease. The body is an oblong 
box-like contrivance, that can be adapted for every kind of load, even 
of such an heterogeneous nature as timber, sacks of flour, or hay. 



40 Camps in the Rockies, 

10,000 feet liigh with one, traversing places where a 
stranger would suppose a horseman could not possibly 
get through. On reaching a ravine or gulch with 
sides too steep to venture to cross it in the ordinary 
manner, the waggon is forthwith unloaded, and the whole 
machine — wheels, pole, box, and axles taken apart, and 
carried piecemeal oyer by the men, and then set up again, 
and the journey resumed. Mining prospectors, who travel 
in a party, usually take one of these waggons, with a good 
team of four or six horses ; and there are very few places 
indeed where they cannot get through one way or the 
other. In crossing rivers too deep to ford, the box is 
used as a boat, fastened by a long rope in the fashion of a 
ferry, to a tree or rock higher up the stream. Thus flour 
and other damageable stores can be got across perfectly 
dry. 

Hitherto the waggon had not given us much trouble, 
the country was of the usual Plains type — hill land of an 
undulating character, hardly ever calling into use the 
dreaded blacksnake whip. Port's simple "Git!*' with 
a mild addition or two, being sufficient to keep the 
team to their collars. Every day or two we would pass 
an isolated cattle ranche, deserted by the owner and his 
men, who were away on the summer '^ round-up,''/.e. collect- 
ing their bovine property. On one such occasion, soon after 
starting out, a little incident happened illustrating in a 
grim fashion the saying that frontier life is hard on cattle 
and women. 

While crossing a range of hills we happened to pass 
a little settlement, consisting of four families, living in 
miserable, tumble-down, windo wl ess adobe hovels. The 
males were all away '^ tie chopping,^' and during their 



Camps on the Way, 41 

absence diphtheria had swept off, in less than four-and- 
twenty hours^ the entire infant population, consisting of 
five children, who were now lying dead in the huts. In 
my absence, and at the prayers of the distracted mothers, 
the two men who were with the waggon emptied some 
dry- goods (grocery) packing-cases, and turned them into 
coffins for the little ones, and, moreover, after unloading 
the rest of the contents, drove the wretched mothers with 
their dead little ones to the nearest settlement, fifteen 
miles off", where diphtheria had caused a children's grave- 
yard to be started. I mention this little incident for two 
reasons — firstly, because it speaks well for the kindly 
heart and ready help the genuine frontiersman invariably 
evinces ; and also as a proof — at least apparently so — of 
the spontaneous origin of this fell disease, which in the 
West is the one sore danger for children. I was assured 
by the afilicted women that they had neither been visited 
nor had seen living being for seven days previous to the 
appearance of the disease, while the next habitation was 
quite eight miles ofi", on the other side of the range of 
hills. 

But to return to our own little troubles. The third 
day after the fire, the character of the landscape we were 
passing through underwent a signal change. We were 
travelling across country, and had struck what is known as 
the Upper Shirley Basin — ten years ago a very famous resort 
for Indians and game. A stream, named very appropriately 
the " Bad Medicine," passes through it, and we had to 
cross it three times in four days. V/estern rivers are all 
very arbitrary and self-willed powers in the land. Many 
have a bad name for most dangerous quicksands, others for 
their extraordinaril}^ rapid rise. Some of the larger creeks 



42 Camps in the Rockies, 

in the nortliern *^ bad-lands " are known to rise twenty and 
thirty feet in half an hour, in consequence of rainstorms. 
Again, others take it into their heads to sink out of 
sight just when their precious liquid is most wanted, and 
keep out of man's way for ten or twenty, in places even 
for sixty, miles. I know not of one single river or stream 
west of the Missouri that has not some more or less 
memorable awkward quality or characteristic aborut it ; but 
for a coalescence of all possible vileness on the part of a 
creek give me the "Bad Medicine," where we struck it on 
our last trip. 

The Shirley Basin is entirely of the mauvaises terres 
or bad-land character, the chief characteristic of which is 
a verdureless, spongy, or claylike soil, riven by great gaps 
with treacherous banks. Through this rotten and water- 
worn country the creek had carved itself a tortuous bed, 
with overhanging banks fifteen or twenty feet high, so 
that its bed at the water-level was broader than the open- 
ing at the top, giving it in places the character of a semi- 
subterraneous stream. The '' Bad Medicine '* is strictly a 
Plains river, so when we reached it we found it suffering 
from the general drought, and no water save occasional 
stagnant pools in it. This, however, did not facilitate 
matters, for it was the bed of the stream not its water that 
puzzled our ingenuity. The banks were so rotten that, 
when on our first striking it I approached the brink, for- 
tunately on foot, it broke under me, and I fell some 
twelve feet, landing on a mud bank, in which, had not a 
rope been thrown to me, I would have very quickly dis- 
appeared. When, therefore, I say that we crossed this 
Styx with waggon and horses three times in three days, 
the reader can fairly picture to himself the nature of the 



Camps on the Way, 43 

job. The first crossing was managed by cutting down the 
banks (we had then two picks and two shovels with us), 
and making a very steep roadway to the water-level. 
Next^ no timber being near^ we had to collect great 
quantities of sagebrush to make a foundation for a 
banked dam across the creek, sufficiently solid to let 
the heavy waggon pass over it : this took us nearly the 
whole day. The two miles we pulled on that evening 
brought us to a worse place, where_, without twice the 
labour, we could not build a similar dammed bridge. So 
the waggon had to be unloaded, taken asunder, and every- 
thing carried across piecemeal. The third crossing, near 
which there were some trees, was performed by means of 
a timber bridge we threw across the yawning gulf, taking 
us rather more than a day's hard work. Thus in nearly 
four days we travelled rather less than four miles. Forty- 
eight hours later we struck the Platte river at one of the 
few fords, where, a month later, a man could wade 
across. It was now a huge mountain torrent, the yellow 
masses of water rushing over some rapids with a roar we 
heard a mile off. It was far too liigh and swift to risk 
swimming it ; so we had to pitch camp, and wait till the 
waters subsided, which- they did very rapidly, for the 
season was already unusually far advanced for these 
freshets. When we finally ventured it, the water was 
about six feet deep, obliging everything to swim. None 
of the horses, with the exception of the saddle animals and 
one or two of the pack- ponies, had ever undergone a similar 
experience, and we had some very ludicrous '^ breaks '' on 
the part of the terrified beasts when they found themselves 
swept off their legs. There were two colts, born not quite 
a week before; these we did not dare to trust to the 



44 Camps in the Rockies, 

rushing torrent, so their four kgs were strapped together, 
and with one tucked under the arm we swam our own 
horses across, the anxious mothers following at our heels. 
It took us six hours to get the whole outfit to the other side ; 
but it was most useful practice, for our subsequent journey- 
along the course of the Big Wind E,iver was replete with 
similar crossings.* 

The following evening we reached Port^s ranche, where 
we halted for a day to rig out the pack-train in proper 
ship-shape. Hitherto we had been travelling very slowly, 
on an average not more than ten or twelve miles a day ; 
but now, rid of the troublesome band of horses and the 
lumbering waggon, we proceeded very much quicker, doing 
often four or five miles at a stretch on a trot— a deal of 
jingle and rattle of pots, pans, and steel-traps accompany- 
ing the performance. Efi'ecting an early start, we used to 
ride till eleven ; then if we happened to strike water, 
noon for a couple of hours, and proceed till dusk, the 
distances between water, which if possible we ascertained 
ahead, governing the speed of travel. To pack and 
unpack eleven sumpter or pack animals four times a day, 
not to mention your own saddle animals, is a job not as 
easy as it looks in writing, for ^ou have to combat with 

^ I may here mention a danger which " tenderfeet " expeditions 
are liable not to notice till it is too late. Most horses out West 
are ridden with Mexican curbs, furnished with tongue-bits with 
rowels, of cruel device and of great power. In swimming rivers, 
attention should be paid to gi7e horses a perfectly free head, if they 
have these curbs. I saw a half-breed's horse drowned, he himself very 
nearly sharing its fate, by his tugging at the reins and thus forcing 
open the horse's mouth. The stream was rapid and rough, so the 
water surged into the poor brute's mouth, and presently it sank under 
its rider. 



Camps on the Way. 45 

the profoundest stratagems on the part of the wily old 
stagers to frustrate your frantic tug at the lash rope; 
and you can be sure that even if, by perseverance worthy 
of a better cause, you have at last managed the famous 
" diamond "or ^' Kit Carson" hitch to the lash ropCj it is only 
life -long practice that develops the skill of a good packer. 
To see Port pack nine or ten horses inside of five-and- 
twenty minutes — the loads being of course laid handy bj^ the 
rest of us — was better than a course of lectures on equine 
metaphysics. Kindly and easy of hand to those of the 
horses that had recognized the uselessness of resistance, he 
" meant business, and no two ways about it," with those 
that had a *' buck " or a kick left in them. A " real mean 
broncho ^^ is an object worth close attention. He snorts 
with rage, bites, rears, bucks, kicks, ducks his head and 
throws it up again, arches his back, and dashes himself 
to the ground ; foam flies from his mouth, fire is in his 
eyes, while his ears are pressed flat against the head ; 
but the powerful purchase gained by an outstretched leg 
pressed against his flank enables the brawny-armed Port 
to subdue that unnecessary expenditure of vileness in a 
very short time, and for the next five minutes that horse 
will go "teepering" about on his toes for the *''cinche" 
or girth that holds the pack-saddle to its place,, and the 
lash-rope that is thrown over the load and round the 
animal are as taut as a strong man^s arms can make 
them. 

One of the most unpleasant results of the great 
drought which seared the Plains in 1880, was the 
quite unprecedented scarcity of all game. Except ante- 
lopes, for the tasteless venison of which we all have 
a strong aversion, game is always rare on the Plains 



46 Camps in the Rockies, 

projDer; but it was much more so the season I am speaking 
of, for even the prongbiick (or antelope) had deserted his 
usual ruDs, and had betaken himself to regions where 
•water and grass were less scarce. Our outfit sported in 
the way of provisions only the ver}^ .simplest articles. 
Besides 500 pounds of flour, an adequate quantity of 
coffeCj tea, sugar, and salt, and some dried apples and 
beans, we could not boast of a single tin of preserved 
meat, vegetables, or such luxuries of camp life, with which 
toothsome but bulky commodities most pleasure expedi- 
tions are loaded down. Hence, when game failed us in 
such a very unexpected manner we were reduced to a very 
heart-breaking diet of bread, beans, and coffee. Then the 
beans gave out, and for sixteen days — endlessly long days 
they seemed — we lived exclusively, or, as the phrase is, 
•' grubbed straight," on bread and coffee. Not even when 
we reached the spurs of the Eocky Mountains did we 
strike game, till we had penetrated far up, close to Timber- 
line on the main chain. Where at other times of the year 
wapiti and bighorn roamed in great numbers, there was 
not a single animal left. We longed for venison, and we 
had meat on our brain. The worst of our starvation diet 
was, that it played such havoc with our fine, healthy animal 
spirits nothing ever before had managed to subdue. I 
believe there are few more temper-trying, though in 
reality harmless extremities, than a ravenous appetite 
whetted to outrageous dimensions by twelve or fourteen 
hours in the saddle in the keen Western air, and only such 
unsubstantial fare as bread and coffee — let the former be 
ever so doughy, and the latter consisting of muddy dregs 
•—wherewith to appease it. 

Day after day four disgusted white men and one grimly 



Camps on the Way, 47 

glum red man would assemble round a cheerfully blazing 
camp fire to play, as Port expressed bimself, Old Harry 
with the flour-sacks and coifee-bags — to rise with an un- 
comfortable sense of vacuity no tightening of the waist- 
band or gathering in of the six-shooter belt could remove. 
Meat we must have : it was the cry in the early morn, 
when after a good night's rest a glorious " break-fast " 
hunger (sic) would sit down with us to the first meal of the 
day ; meat was the cry at noon, and meat was the last 
word at night ; indeed, in the case of at least one of the 
party, even in dreamland would the appetite receive un- 
necessarily stimulating fillips by fata morgana visions of 
boiling ribs of elk, and juicy tender loin-steaks of a prime 
three-year-old bighorn. One morning, I remember, a 
grim laugh was raised by Henry. The evening before I 
had been telling the men — for conversation would keep 
to suggestive topics — how a very celebrated surgeon 
(Professor Billroth, of Vienna) had succeeded in re- 
moving portions of the stomach from cancer patients, who 
finally recovered. Henry, it seems, had been sleeping that 
night with Port, who had reason to complain of his rest- 
lessness, and when twitted with it, as with rueful faces 
we were sitting round the morning cofi'ee and bread, he 
laconically remarked '^ that 'most anj^body would be restless 
if they dreamt that thar boss bone-carpenter was ^ dress- 
ing ' {Ang. gralloching, used when opening a deer) their 
insides, and kinder couldn't find no stomach to take 
outy A good sound hunger is a very nice thing — 
nothing nicer in fact when just about to be appeased ; 
but to have that selfsame hunger grow older, outstrip 
baby proportions, assume a more aggressive manly form, 
and finally ^urn into a regular grizzly old veteran hunger, 



48 Camps in the Rockies, 

getting Tip with, you from your meals and lying down 
with you at night, bathing with you in the cool beaver 
pool or mountain stream , sitting on your horse through long 
dreary rides, gnawing at your vitals, wrecking your even 
temper, turning your pleasure- trip into a wretched parody 
— this, I say, was hard to bear. And as I look back to 
those days, I cannot hide from myself that the very fact of 
our not having cut each other^s throats, or snapped each 
other's heads off, speaks volumes for the innate good 
qualities of those four white men. The red man, juicy 
old Christmas, who knew our savage pleasantry'' from 
previous occasions, had suddenly discovered urgent 
business on the other side of the range, and had ridden 
off with the carcass of an unlucky prairie dog dangling at 
his saddle-bcw. 

Thirst and hunger are bad enough, but what are they 
in comparison to a scourge that swept down upon us when 
we struck the timbered foothills of the Rockies, i.e. the 
dreaded mountain flies — a species of mosquito, the most 
terrible of the genus Culex ? 

The contrasting extremes of the camel and the gnat are 
very applicable, when pointing out how very ridiculous 
it seems that a big, burly, bearded son of his mother 
should cut such mad capers, occupy such ludicrous posi- 
tions, use such Titanic language, evince such an abnormal 
shortness of temper, and altogether present the appearance 
of a maniac, just because an animal, the body of which is 
smaller than a pin's head, chooses to make of his person a 
playground for its microscopic antics. 

For the common weal of mankind I hope there is no 
such mosquito-ridden place on the green Earth as certain 
marsh V lakes about the base of the foothills of the 



Camps on the Way, 49 

snow- napped Big Wind River Mountains. It was in the 
last days of July, the worst time ; and the whole district 
was overwhelmed by enormous clouds of these torments, 
the creation of the abnormal drought which had laid dry 
lakes and creeks. Never before having been troubled to any 
extent by mosquitoes, we were totally unprovided with veils, 
or any material that could be substituted, the nearest thing 
to gauze, being empty canvas flour sacks, which Jaiite de 
mieux came in very handy. One or two of our horses 
were white ; and to give an idea of the myriads of the 
enera}^ I may mention that when seen from a little dis- 
tance they appeared of uniform dark colour. Life became 
an intolerable misery, men and beasts suffering alike. For 
while we, ludicrous scarecrows, were dragging ourselves 
along, with swollen faces and half-closed eyes, ia the 
despairing listlessness of men who for a week knew not 
what a night's rest was, and who for a fortnight had not 
eat down to the semblance of a square meal, the poor brutes 
of horses were staggering along under their light loads, 
reduced to walking skeletons by the bloodthirsty pests. 

But everything has an end, so also our unpleasant 
experiences. In the latter part of July we reached Fort 
Washakie, the most isolated of the military posts in the 
West. On leaving it, after a stay of a couple of days, 
we bid good-bye to fellow-beings, for till the end of 
ISTovember I saw only on two occasions strange white 
faces. On August 1 0th we reached Timberline on the 
Sierra Soshone, and on the following day struck a delight- 
ful oasis in the uppermost belt of forest. Here we made 
the first permanent camp of nearly a week. Four-and- 
twenty hours later a snowstorm cleared the air of mos- 
quitoes ; and on the same day I killed four big wapiti 

E 



50 Camps in the Rockies, 

stags. "Witli the first dinner where meat graced our table 
the spell was broken. For more than four m.onths we 
roamed over incomparable mountain territory, for weeks 
camped at altitudes varying between 10,000 and 12,000 
feet over the sea-level — to-day perhaps on the bor- 
ders of one of the hundreds of small exquisitely-beau- 
tiful mountain tarns that dot the great backbone of the 
Big Wind Eiver Mountains; to-morrow at the brink of a 
deep gloomy canyon,^ of mysterious depth and supreme 
grandeur ; while on the following day, night would sur- 
prise us close to Timberline, in the dense green wilderness 
of the pathless forests of the Western slopes, where we 
would spread our robes under the broad branches of a 
stately silver pine ; the following evening's camp-fire 
lighting up great fantastically-shaped and grotesquely- 
coloured walls of rock, closing in on every side a 
small emerald-tinted meadow lining the bank of a 
turbulent mountain stream, to which snug cliff-bowered 
retreat access could only be gained by following the 
beaver^s example, and wading our horses through the 
gloomy can5^ons the waters had worn through the sur- 
rounding mountains. A couple of weeks hence we would 
probably be a couple of hundred miles away, threading our 
way through the grotesque mauvaises terres scenery, grandly 
coloured, and of the su-perhly "bizarre formation, by which 
the Sierra Soshone, that unexplored sea of nameless peaks 
cut up by deep gorges of tortuous course, is distinguished.. 
Every day, every hour, new scenery, new vistas of 
Alpine landscape, burst upon our eyes. Game abounded, and 
from the grizzly to the muledeer exceptionally large speci- 

^ In writing the word canon, I prefer to follow its phonetic ren- 
deriDg. 



Camps on the Way, 5 1 

mens rewarded the stalks of many hours along bad-land 
ledges, or the day's ride through forests. 

The desire to avoid wearisome geographical details 
has led me to refrain filling these pages with matter of 
little interest to the general reader. I must, however, 
give those who may entertain a lurking desire to visit 
the Bockies some little clue to my wanderings. In the 
Appendix I have embodied a brief outline of the country 
and of its history in the way of previous explorations ; 
here I will only say that the district in question, taken 
as a whole, has been tracked by three Government explor- 
ing expeditions on the Western, Northern, and South- 
Eastern extremities. Many portions visited by us were, 
so far as the information of leading authorities goes, never 
before visited by a party of white men. Until quite recently 
(1879) the country was most unsafe for small expeditions ; 
and I am nol^ aware that any shooting-party had ever, up to 
1880, penetrated into the recesses of the Sierra Soshone, or 
visited the Western slopes of the Wind River chain between 
Togwotee Pass and the head-waters of the Dinwiddy. The 
occasional trappers who had been there before us did so 
by turning squawmen, i.e. marrying Indian wives, and 
by turning Indians themselves had thus been able to 
intrude into those pleasant lunting-grounds. 



52 Camps in the Rockies^ 



CHAPTER III. 

LIFE IN CAMP. 

Camp incidents — Appearance of camp — Baking — Good appetites- 
Charms of free travel — Lake scenery — Naming camp — Nature of 
camps — Eeturn to camp at night — Camp homes. 

I HAVE purposely delayed speaking of our every-day life 
till we had reached the hunting and trapping grounds : 
to get at which, as the reader has heard, we had to pass 
through a series of little trials and petty har(tehips, sorely 
trying our mental and physical tempers. 

ISTow everything is again bright and pleasant ; and, if 
not exactly couleiir de rose, the vast stretches of blue-green 
pines and silvery- trunked spruce through which we are 
constantly travelling, and the beautiful emerald- green 
''beaver-meadows^'' we frequently traverse, present more 
gratefully nature-like tints to eyes scorched by the glare 
of the verdureless Plains ; while the magic air of timber- 
line regions exercises its rejuvenating powers on lungs 
that for weeks have breathed the alkaline dust of the 
same desert-like expanses. The camp fireside is again 
the meeting-place of cheerful faces and unbounded spirits ; 
while the best of sport, amid grand Alpine scenery, gives 
keen zest to our every-day lives, and provides a never- 
failina: fund for anecdote and chaff. 



Life in Camp. 53 

There is a peculiar charm in the independent mode of 
trapper voyaging. Entirely emancipated from the rest of 
mankind^ unrestrained by the fetters and by the exigent 
demands of civilization, you roam about as free as the 
deer you constantly startle from their covert. You pitch 
camp, or scoop out a primitive '^dug out,'^ with the 
enfranchised liberty of the beaver. The great unknown 
lies before you ; and, none but a character blunted to all 
natural feeling could fail to experience the pleasant, 
though sadly travestied, flush of the embryo '^ Weltent- 
decker,^' adding a subtle charm to pursuits dear to the 
sportsman^s and to the naturalist's heart. 

The next best everj'^-daj^ scene of our travels will convey 
the pleasant freedom that marks the life of our party. 

" Boreas, the doggarned old hoss, has, after all^ a better 
nose than any of us for fijiding a camping-place,''' re- 
marks Port, one September evening, as^ riding at the 
head of our little pack-train, through a glade traversing 
a grand old forest, he comes up to where I am sitting on 
a fallen pine, awaiting the party. And it is not an idle 
compliment either ; for truly the old horse seems always 
to sniff a good camping-place from afar. As usual, I have 
taken an evening stalk on foot through the twilight forest, 
not so much for sporting purposes as to stretch my legs 
after a long day's ride, and also to examine the ground 
for tracks of wapiti and moose. 

Boreas has, as on all such occasions, the reins thrown 
over his neck, fastened co a spring buckle cunningly con- 
cealed behind the horn of the Mexican saddle, and after 
receiving a slap or a mild kick, as a signal that he is not 
wanted and need not wait for me, ambles off alone after 
(he pack-train, strolling ahead of it, till he finds an espe- 



54 Camps in the Rockies. 

cially inviting bit of grass^ upon whicli he will feast till 
his companions get half a mile or so ahead, when he will 
repeat his tactics. The sun is down, and both horses 
and men are on the look-out for camp. A loud neigh — 
" nicker " the trapper calls it — from Boreas, and an 
answering one from his favourite mare^ causes the above 
remark. Looking round, we discover the equine camp- 
finder standing 200 yards off, with head outstretched in 
the middle of a most inviting little clearing, evincing 
in his pose, as plainly as had he spoken : " This is 
the boss camping-place for us.*'' As yet we can see 
no water — that most essential element in choosing the 
camp site ; but so convinced are we of my favourite's 
sagacity, that the train is immediately swung to the side, 
and very soon we catch sight of a clear little brook, half 
hidden under tall rye-grass and the drooping branches of 
stately spruce-pines. Ten minutes later the grass is littered 
with the packs : here a heavy load of three sacks of flour, 
there the elk-hide side-panniers, containing the "dry'' 
stores, i.e. those most to be protected against water when 
fording and swimming the larger creeks and rivers; 
yonder the powder-keg and sundry big bales of furs, 
interspersed by " bunches '^ of steel traps. On a pile of 
pack-saddles lie our four rifles, while sundry saddle-bags, 
buifalo-coats, and carelessly flung-down Colts are strewing 
the ground all round. The horses, just sufficiently tired 
by tlieir day's work to thoroughly enjoy a good roll, and 
not stand about, as often, poor beasts, they do, with 
drooping heads and pinched flanks, too tired to feed, are 
relishing that pleasure to the fullest, while the example 
of the two colts— general pets of the camp — racing each 
other round and round, cutting the most amusing capers. 



Life in Camp. 55 

and nickering witli wild delight, is followed by our two 
canine camp-followers, playing their doggish game of 
hide-and-seek with all the vivacity of youth and vigour. 

It is the heau-icUal of a trapper's or hunter's camp, 
guarded by the great peak that overshadows the pic- 
turesque glade. The grass in rich plenty, reaching up to the 
knees of the horses, is green ; not the tint of our pastures 
at home, but a green that matches the silvery trunks of 
the stately pines and the blue-green of their boughs, 
sweeping in languid curve the tall rye-grass at their feet. 
The smoke of the camp-fire, pleasantly perfumed by the 
cedarwood which produces it, rises in blue circles, higher 
and higher as the blaze increases, till at last it blends 
with the Alpine blue of the sky. The clear brook, 
traversing the glade sounds an irresistible invitation to 
enjoy a dip. 

Let us look round. How content, how pleasant and 
pleased, everything looks ! For a moment we wish we 
could roll in the green fragrant mountain-grass as do the 
horses and the dogs. Happy carelessness of what the 
past has brought and what the future may bring — of the 
long weary rides through desolate parched deserts ; of 
dreary ** dry camps \'' of swollen rivers swum by shrink- 
ing animals ; of the deep snow, that presently will cover 
the mountain -side; of cold and hunger — blissful ignorance 
and forgetfulness are stamped on human, equine, and 
canine physiognomy, as each member, in his manner and 
way, is enjoying to the full the present. 

Here, dotting the quiet peaceful glade before us, is 
animal life, the impulsive joyous spirit of healthful vigour, 
fanned to keen freshness by the cool bracing breeze 
straight down from the snow-fields. There, right round 



56 Camps in the Rockies, 

us^ wrapped in solemn stillness and majesty, life of another 
kind — that of Nature as she was created, as yet undefiled 
by the desecrating hand of man. 

But duty cuts short these musings ; for in an *' outfit '* 
composed of the elements, and based on the simple 
principles of trapper fashion, as ours is, there is always 
plenty to do. A long day's ride has made us all hungry 
as Indians ; so if we are to begin at the beginning, that 
very beginning is the supper. 

The fire brought to proper cooking proportions — t.e, 
the coals raked to the front for baking, and the logs so 
arranged that pots and pans preserve their equilibrium — 
we all go to work. One man bakes ; but that man is not 
I, for I was found wanting, since on one of my first 
attempts to do so, one cold drizzly night on a previous 
expedition I had to bake in the dark, and my pipe — an 
otherwise inseparable companion — was subsequently found 
in the loaf. Baking is altogether a very hateful occupa- 
tion. Your face gets scorched, your knees get sooty, your 
fingers blistered, and it taxes not only your patience, but 
also j^our vocabulary of " Government talk/' On cold 
days in winter you have got to wash j^our hands in a 
mush of water and ice ; for hunger is a mighty impatient 
master, and there is no time to heat water in the camp 
kettle. The flour-sack is sure to be at the very bQttom of 
the pack-sack, and the baking-powder, or " saleratus '' 
(the grandest word in the trapper^s very abridged 
dictionary), cannot be found, or when it is found every- 
thing around' it in the pack bears the marks of your 
mealy fingers ; for naturally, in the manner of man, you 
have first mixed the flour, and then only look about you 
for "thatyar white powder as makes bread git up and 



Life in Camp, 57 

hump itself/* as an old trapper called it. But it is only 
in "real mean'^ weather, when the snow or frozen sleet 
beats down upon your devoted head, unprotected by tent 
or other shelter — for our outfit was singularly bare of your 
luxurious camp paraphernalia of JSTimrods who travel in 
the Adirondacks with tent, camp-stools, and camp-bed — 
and the wind, a genuine No. 12 gale, whirlmg your flour 
from the pan, that you realize what baking really is. 
Then, probably, the giggling wretches who do not bake 
will hear some choice and not unfamiliar quotations, 
while their *' Hurry up l'^ will set at defiance that good 
old trapper's proverb, *^ To make haste slowly, pans the 
best.'* It is always a comical sight to see big strapping 
fellows, their six-shooters at their waist, metamorphosed 
into cooks : their horny hands, but ill fit to handle pots 
and pans, 'their awkward touch, their heavy tramp, and 
withal their clumsy way of setting about things, — one and 
ail combine to make a cowboy or trapper-cook a ludicrous 
sight. But more than comical it is to watch, on a fierce 
winter's night, a big hulking giant, wrapped in a buffalo- 
coat, make his preparation for baking, v/hile a snow-hurri- 
eane is blowing, and damp wood is on the fire. With his 
back to the wind, the pan in which the flour is mixed — in 
nine cases out of ten the gold pan, in which at odd times 
he washes for that precious metal — carefully held inside 
his coat, as a loving mother would fondle her babe ; 
between his teeth the tin cup fall of water, from which, 
by a dexterous jerk of tlie head., he spills into the pan the 
requisite amount of the liquid ; between his knees the 
flour-sack, and tucked under his. arm the saleratus tin ; 
thus the shaggy monster bakes ! 

Practice alone can make you an adept at it, as I found 



58 Camps in the Rockies. 

out on a certain terrible December night, when Indians, 
as we thought, had stampeded our horses, the men having 
set out in pursuit, while I, being temporarily disabled by 
a thrust of a dying elk, was to guard camp and—bake. 
The gale howled, and turn wherever I would the snow 
beat with fierce violence against my face. Hundreds of 
times had I watched the men mix the flour under precisely 
similar circumstances ; and were not my teeth as able as 
theirs to hold the tin cup of water, and was not my buffalo- 
coat as wind proof as that of the trapper's ? All very true ; 
but yet my first attempt to clinch the ice-coated metal be- 
tween my teeth resulted in a cold bath for my knees, while 
the second trial succeeded in so far as the holding was 
concerned. I could grasp the cup as long you liked, 
but, to save ray life, I could not give that dexterous jerk 
necessary to spill some of the water into the j)an, where 
the flour was in the meanwhile, notwithstanding the wind- 
proof quality of my coat, whirling about in utter disregard 
of my clothes. My bulldog grip continued, and at last I 
summoned up courage to give that fatal jerk. It is 
needless to say that the whole contents was landed in my 
face, where it very soon turned into a thin layer of ice, not 
increasing my good humour. Water was plentiful, so the 
cup was refilled ; and, as I was determined to succeed, a 
second attempt at jerking was made. This time it was 
somewhat nearer the mark ; for the liquid went down my 
neck only. That suicidal " reback action '* of the water, 
as the men called it, was difficult to overcome. It w^ould 
go back, instead of forward, be the jerk ever so gently and 
nicely adjusted. By the time my perseverance did succeed 
there was no flour left in the pan to mix, and the saleratua 
tin had rolled off, " running down the slope before a stiff 
breeze." When the men finally returned, I was no little 



Life in Camp. 59 

proud of my two loaves, but less so of my flour-bedraggled 
appearance, leading the men to more than suspect " what 
a job it was to bake !" 

No wonder, the reader will say, when I tell him that 
grumbling on the score of bread was not infrequent. It 
was either too salt, or too doughy, or too crisp, or too 
much saleratus in it, or burnt to a cinder, which latter, as 
we had only a frying-pan to bake in, and the fire generally 
of huge dimensions, would occur, notwithstanding the best 
intentions. It was, therefore, agreed among the men, that 
the first who should grumble was to relieve the then baker. 
Two or three days afterwards, when we had only a very 
miserable camp-fire, the bread was a mass of dough inside. 
The boy was the first to forget the penalty for grumbling. 
Taking a hearty bite at the bread, he exclaimed, '' Doggarn 
this bread ! I'll be darned if it ain't a mass of — '^ Then 
the paste gummed up his mouth ; but recollecting at the 
same instant in what danger he was, he blurted out, half 
choked by the dough, **but I like it.^"* 

This time his quick wits had saved him ; but he fell 
victim a day or two later, when, taking up a loaf just from 
the frying-pan, he dropped it as quickly, saying, " Cuss 
that hot bread!" ^\q vox populi of the camp declared 
that *^ hot " was sufficient to convict, so he had to take 
the baker's place. 

While the boy fetched the water, ground the coffee in a 
tin cup with the muzzle of his six-shooter — our cofiee-mill 
having come to an early grave at the heels of the *' kitchen 
mule,'^ the others occupied themselves with the meat and 
bread. There were three frying-pans in the outfit : one, a 
very big one, was for the bighorn haunch or black-tail 
tender loiu-steak ; the other for the bread; while the third 
and smallest one fell to my lot. In it I fried, broiled^ 



6o Camps in the Rockies, 

stewed, or boiled such odds and ends as struck my fancy. 
Beaver tail and bear liver were general favourites, not so 
elk brain or kidney. Cooking these little tidbits of camp- 
fare reminds me always of that most delightful occupation 
of the juvenile mind, making mud-pasties on the sands by 
the sea. Let the" liver be a blotched mass of half-cooked 
gore, or the brain a jelly-like mass, or the kidney cinder 
ou the outside and raw inside, yet you find it nice, and are 
happy. These latter delicacies the men never touched; 
for trappers are very fastidious in the choice of their meat, 
and I believe they thought me next to a barbarian for 
gourmandising on kidnejs, which they consider ^' unclean, 
and not fit for a dog.^"* 

Once I inveigled a stranger to taste my favourite stew ; 
but I am sorry to say it was not favourably received. 
" By the jumping Moses, you've been and gone done it ! " 
he cried out. And when I asked him what I had gone and 
done, he replied, '^ Why, pisoned me, man, like a cayote/* 
The fellow was a Hoosier (native of Indiana), and his 
language was the strangest mixture of Pennsylvania Dutch 
and Kentucky negroisms, and a liberal infusion of *^ we 
uns ^' and '* you uns,''^ and *^ gone done it ^^ and '^ gwine to 
gone done it," I ever heard. 

Cooking did not take long, and the *"' All set ! ^' was a 
welcome signal to repair to our festive board. The water- 
proof sheet spread on ih^ ground near the fire where the 
smoke was least troublesome ; four tin plates, and as many 
cups and knives and forks, do not take long to lay, 
especially if they are tumbled out of tiieir usual receptacle 
in a heap, every man '' grabbing a root," i,e, helping 
himself to his own. 

What a glorious thing a good, healthy appetite is! 



Life in Camp. 6 1 

Indeed ours was so glorious, that before leaving frontier- 
land and entering the wilds wa were well known for it, I am 
ashamed to say, at all the camps, ranches, and hunters' 
camps where we had partaken of hospitality. At one 
place the '* boss,^* after watching in silence our attacks on 
the grub pile, remarked very good-humouredly, ^* Wa'al, 
boys, Fll be doggarned if I won^t back you at grub-lifting 

against any other outfit in this yar countr}?-. By G 

I will, if it takes my bottom dollar and cleans me out to 
bed-rock/^ At one '^ road ranche^' — a roadside inn, 
where you have to pay for your meals at a fixed rate — which 
I passed on my return to civilization, and where I struck 
the first potatoes after having gone five months without 
vegetables of any shape, the fellow who ^' ran ^' the house, 
after seeing me ** through ^' my meal, asked me if I was 
thinking of returning to "these yer diggings/' On my 
answering him, and innocently asking why he wanted to 
know, he said, " Wall, you see, stranger, times ain't been 
way up hereabouts, and our p'tater-patch yonder ain^t as 
big as a county ; but if you take back-tracks, Pd have to 
make it about that squar', sure/' 

The very next day (I was travelling in the mail-sleigh 
from a remote fort to the next little town, 160 miles off), 
luck would have it that, at a similar log-hovel hostelry, I 
struck butter, the first I had tasted for nearly half a year. I 
was hungry, and the butter looked fresh, and little besides 
bread on the table. A woman " ran " the house, a sour- 
looking Eocky Mountain " lad}^^^ whose life, to judge by 
her grim humour, must have consisted of one series of 
reverses, her birth being one of them. During my meal 
she sat opposite to me. She had not spoken a word, for 
on my entrance she only pointed to the table in the 



62 Camps in the Rockies, 

taciturn "Western way ; and moreover there was not time 
for gossip, as the mail-driver was in a hurrj^ to finish his 
day's drive, with the thermometer down to —35° Fahr. 
My meal over, I threw the customary fifty- cent piece on 
the table^ and was about to hurry out, when she spoke 
up : — *^ Stranger, you ain't got no mother-in-law, that^s 
sartin. Hadn't my cow just calved, I would donate you 
them ar^ four bits ^' (fifty cents) " to buy yourself one. 
You kinder want one to teach you what four bits' worth 
of butter hefts " (weighs). 

But I am rambling away from our trapper-camp. Supper 
over, the work of the evening began. First of all the 
stock wanted looking after. If it were an Indian country 
— the case most of the time — three or four of the horses had 
to be picketed or hobbled ; but before doing that, it was 
necessary to let them feed. Probably they had wandered 
off a nsile or so while we were at supper, and hence it took 
the man whose turn it was to attend to them the best part 
of the evening to get them back into the next neighbour- 
hood of the canip, pick a good patch of grass, water them, 
and secure those whose turn it was. The others looked 
to the washing up and " straightening out '' of things 
generally. I fancy many a good and true mane's lips will 
curl with disdain as he reads that rifles have to be cleaned, 
cartridges require loading, clothes need patching with 
sailor^s needle and buckstring thread, horses have to be 
shod, coffee browned, gaping holes in boots and moccasins 
want the awl and last, straps and pack-harness require 
splicing, the pack-sacks cry out for patches, and pack^ 
saddles for odd screws, and no end of other suchlike 
pleasant and unpleasant pastimes, not to mention our 
groom's duties of saddling our horses and taking them 



Life in Camp, 63 

to water when they are thirsty. But, then, reader, you 
and I, I hope, always comfort ourselves with the know- 
ledge that the guns, the boots, and the horses are our own, 
while the lips that scoff at these menial occupations are 
not. Everything that fell to my share accomplish e:'', my 
pocket-book v/ith my daily notes had its turn. Often an 
hour or two was spent in jotting down, in a scrawling hand 
— the powder-keg between my knees serving as table — 
some very inspired thoughts that could not wait. When, at 
verj^ rare intervals, a chance was looming up of sending by 
Indians letters to the next frontier fort, often 150 or 200 
miles off, the evening was devoted to epistolary duties ; the 
result of such hours, in the shape of letters, being pinned 
to the inside of some morose old buck's blanket, or nailed 
to the board on which the papoose was strapped, the 
latter being of the two the surest way. Later on in the 
season, when winter storms and intense frosts were in 
regular attendance, writing became a more embarrassing 
undertaking, till finally it had to be abandoned altogether. 
'^ Going to bed '^ is a very simple affair. Boots or 
moccasins are taken off, and carefully covered by the robe 
you lie on, for they must not be exposed to the frosty 
air, or they will freeze hard, in which case you will in the 
morning hear some unchristianlike conversation. This is 
about all you take off; what extra clothing in the shape 
of a knit jersey, or even buffalo-coat, you put on, depends 
upon the temperature. Your pockets are emptied, and their 
contents placed in your hat, alongside the six-shooter, 
underneath your pillow, which probably will be the saddle ; 
while the rifle is equally carefully laid alongside the boots, 
so as to be handy, and perfectly protected against rain or 
snow. Trapper-beds are snug and warm, and as simple 



64 Camps in the Rockies. 

as the toilette of the occTipants. A bearskin or two, witli 
a blanket, if you iiaye one, under you, and two robes as 
cover, with a large sheet of waterproof tarpaulin, to turn 
rain and snow, spread over the whole, is all that is wanted.* 
If you pitch camp while it is yet light, a '^ soft '' spot for 
your roost can be looked up, though generally the dis- 
covered softness will be more illusionary than real, and 
such being the case, old mountaineers usually do not 
trouble themselves about it. After dark the less you 
bother about stones or projecting rocks under your bed 
the wiser you are. Remove those that are loose, and as 
you " twist to fit the bumps " regard those that are not 
loose with the supreme contempt the sound sleep of the 
Rocky Mountains will enable you to manifest. 

Two things are of importance anent making beds. The 
first is to lie with your feet towards the direction from 
whence the wind blows, for if you do not ob^?-rve this pre- 
caution you will risk having your cover and blankets lifted 
bodily off you by a sudden gust. Secondly, choose as level 
a spot as 3^ou can, for if the plane of your bed slopes ever so 
slightly to one side you will surely roll out of your warm 
nest in the night, and if you lie with your legs downwards 
you will in the morning find yourself " ''way down,'"' where 
when j^ou went to sleep you left your feet. 

Avoid, if you possibly can, to sleep with a^iother man; 
sacrifice rather a blanket, or a robe than risk passing an 
uncomfortable night at tlie side of a restless sleeper. Of 
course there are cases where, if you find yourself in a 
strange camp without your own bedding, you will have 
to share beds. On one of my previous trips I once was 
witness of a ludicrous scene in the way of bedfellow trou- 
* See Appendix. 



Life in Camp. 65 

bles. It was in a stockman's camp, whicli I reached late in 
the evening, my horse being too worn out to take me the 
remaining twelve or fifteen miles to my own fireside. The 
boys, in the hospitable way peculiar to them, let me 
have a ^^ bed^' to myself, while two of them shared. I had 
not got fairly to sleep when I was roused by some angry 
and not very select biblical quotations. The trouble was 
in the double bed next to mine ; and presently the cause 
was developed. It seems that one of the men, knowing 
the other to be a restless sleeper, addicted to violent kick- 
ing, had buckled his big Spanish spurs with two-inch rowels 
to his stockinged feet. Against these his restless bedmate 
had come to grief; and the other raan^s dry, ^' Wa'al, I 
reckon'd you would hurt yourself,^' raised a titter all 
round. 

Another little anecdote of a Western Judge and an 
Irish navvy sharing beds is worth telling. The former 
addressing himself, self-importantly, to his humbler com- 
panion asked whether he had ever slept in the old country 
with a judge ? To which Pat responded : " I^o, sure that 
I havn^t ; but sure, ye mightn't have been a judge in the 
ould countree." 

The camp, if a stay of a day or two is intended, 
rapidly acquires a homelike look. Long six-inch nails, 
carefully removed on leaving, are driven an inch or two 
into the trunks of the trees that surround our quarters. 
On them are hung up the various articles that otherwise 
would be lying about in primitive disorder. One trunk is 
the larder tree, on the next are hung all the traps, the 
third is a sort of general wardrobe, while the fourth has 
my stout leather " hold-all ^^ slung up. What a wealth 
of recollections does not that "hold-all"'' conjure up I 

F 



66 Camps in the Rockies, 

Called by the men the '^boss's Saratoga trunk, '^ it hag 
undergone on its three expeditions a wonderful amount 
of roughing. The receptacle of the most heterogeneous 
knick-knacks, it can, if ever a trunklike receptacle could, 
tell fabulous tales of travel. When only half filled — ■ 
nearly cut in twain by the strangling pack-ropes, pulled 
across the saddle as taught as Port's or Edd^s strength 
would let them. When full — squashed a dozen times a day 
out of all pristine shape and contour between handy trees 
standing close together, and past which the horse or mule 
carrying it, with the peculiar obstinacy of all pack animals, 
would force a passage. Soused by frequent immersions into 
rivers and creeks ; now rolling down steep slopes, with 
the brute to whose back it is roped using it as buffer, and 
finally, after cannoning against rocks and trees, when he 
is brought up at the bottom with a dull thud that jars your 
tenderest chords. Disappearing in the distance, dragging 
and bumping along the ground, for it is still attached by 
the rope to the stampeded horse, who, after '^lighting into 
bucking,^' has partially rid himself of his burden, and 
is now showing the country to my invaluables. To see a 
horse go head over heels down a precipitous bank, and land 
at the bottom either ''ended up," as the trapper calls a posi- 
tion of wholly disturbed equilibrium, or see the waters of a 
rapid-flowing mountain torrent closing over his head, is 
very funny, for you have long come to the conviction that 
nothing short of absolute instantaneous annihilation can 
hurt or harm a pack-horse. But your smile is apt to change 
into a look of agonized fear if the loud laughing shouts of 
the men inform you that, not sacks of flour or packs of skins, 
which you at first imagined to be on that very horse, are 
its burden, but the devoted " hold-all/' for ever being sat 



Life in Camp, 67 

on, ducked, kicked, dragged, scraped, hoisted, flung about, 
and otherwise maltreated. Like a flash of lightning the 
contents of the hapless bag are passed in review. The 
stockings and flannel garments cannot be damaged ; the 
reloaclinof tools of the rifle are all of iron, and have been 
ducked many a time without harm. Boots, the three or 
four small books, the store of tobacco, a tin case with 
fuzees and matches, a similar receptacle for the entire 
store of the men's str3^chnine, which, to prevent accidents, 
I have taken charge of — for hitherto it was usually '^packed 
along '^ in uncomfortable proximity to our flour and sugar, 
— the stout waterproof writing-portfolio, with sheet-tin 
sides, some extra pipes, knives, &c. One and all are by 
their nature, or by that of their covering, not liable to 
be damaged, were the ** hold-all"" to be thrown from 
a church steeple, or to be engulfed in the Niagara. But 
what of that little bottle of cayenne powder — the only 
bottle-like breakable in the outfit — which I received as a 
present at the Fort ? Broken to tiny splinters in a bump- 
ing race, the contents have been nicely distributed through 
the whole sack ; and when opened it made us all cry a 
yard off", and what is more, continued to make us cry and 
sneeze by fits and starts for the next month. But every- 
thing has its bad and also good sides ; even that cayenne 
powder had redeeming points, for it accomplished what 
nothing else seemed capable of pr forming, namely, it 
cured a miscliievous young Newfoundland dog of a per- 
plexing trick of carrying ofi" personal propertj^, to play 
with in private. All kinds of things had thus been lost 
— socks, handkerchiefs, winter gloves, and other articles 
of our simple toilette. With playful bound, the young 
thief espied that evening an innocent- looking glove 

F 2 



68 Camps m the Rockies, 

Ijdng on the ground near camp, and with the usual 
canine gambols it was tossed up— only once, mind you, for 
the next instant that dog was weeping over his sins. On 
the whole, it would be hard to say who cried more, we 
from laughter or the pup from cayenne. He never 
touched gloves again. 

Or, to give another instance of suchlike mishaps, what 
of that single paper of ^' paint," ^ which, after my last at- 
tempt at trading with a morose old Arrappahoe Indian, I had 
forgotten to restore to its proper water-tight receptacle of 
sheet- tin, and left knocking about the '^ hold- all,i* perfectly 
unprotected against the unforeseen sousing the mal-inten- 
tioned Old John had in store for it ! We all laughed at 
his frantic efforts to get out of the whirlpool into which 
his own obstinacy had driven him. But I for one no 
longer laughed when, by a final vigorous leap, the horse 
gained dry ground, and the water that had inundated the 
'* hold-all '* trickled forth a bright vermilion-hued liquid. 
I never knew a thimbleful of colour dye so much ; and no 
doubt the family of beavers, in whose pool a day or two 
afterwards I did my washing, must have thought the 
same. 

We were in the habit of giving every camp where we 
stayed more than one night, and even many so-called 
twelve-hour camps, a distinctive name. For not only is 

2 One of the best mediums of trading with India.ns is *' paint " 
i.e. Chinese vermilion, put up in small packets, similar to Seidlitz 
powders. They use it for painting their persons ; and, next to 
whiskey, which it is a criminal offence to trade or give to Indians, it 
is a very favourite article amongst most wild tribes of the North-west. 
I had taken several pounds with me, to trade horses and peltr}^ for the. 
men. The papers containing the powdered paint are known as '* a 
paint." 



Life ill Camp. 69 

this a great aid when referring in after-time to one in 
particular, not to be obliged to have recourse to the very 
roundabout trapper geographj?" — which at best was only 
possible in that portion of the frontier country where the 
creeks and mountains had names, and also not to be 
obliged to use strange-sounding descriptive terms, as, for 
instance, " the camp six miles up the second creek, on the 
west side of the south fork of the west fork of the Cotton- 
wood creek." Not only may this ^' Cottonwood creek " be 
'prima, facie wrong, but there are such an innumerable 
number of Cottonwood, Beaver, Great and Little Sandy, 
Muddy, Sweet-water, and Stinking-water creeks in the 
West, that, at best, this sort of designation is worse than 
useless. So with us every camp received its name, and 
was henceforth known by it. Usually called after some in- 
cident^f—and few camps were without that — which occurred 
at it, one could instantly identify the place indicated by 
the speaker when he referred to some locality visited by 
us two or three months previously. Looking through 
my diary I come upon rather odd nanes. "Hunger 
camps,^' paraphrased in all sorts of ways, more explanatory 
than euphonious, of course abounded on the first part of 
the trip. Some others were rnoi-e practical than funny, 
as, for instance, the " Live skunk," the " Dead skunk," 
the " Sick rattler," the "Knife in the thigh," the " Pipe 
in the loaf," the " Boss baker," the *' Peppery glove," 
the "Trampled coflPee-mill," the "Split flour- sack," the 
" Big bear," and the ^* Lost-stocking camp." Others were 
pathetic: "No horse," "Gone up," "Big Lie," "Boss 
Lie" — the two last referring to romancing guests, for I 
am speaking also of previous expeditions, where we more 
frequently came into contact with story-tellers of Western 



70 Camps in the Rockies. 

grit and bottom ; while a dozen of more tlian uauall;^ 
famous ''Stampedes/* each designated by the leading 
equine criminal's name, rendered some of our camp sitea 
memorable. A few were of grim import, thus "Dead- 
man^s camp/* where we found a man's body in the brush 
close to our roosts, after wondering all night what on 
earth smelt so badly ; " White-woman's-hand camp^* when 
one of the dogs (we were camped near the old emigrant 
trail) discovered a mummified human hand, which, to judge 
by its size, was that of a woman. Several combined the 
ludicrous with the grim. Thus, for instanc»> on two 
occasions the Plains water, more than usually impreg- 
nated with alkaline salts, made us, accustomed as we were 
to its disturbing effects, remember the first as " Ache 
camp '' (there was a prefix to the first word) . The second 
instance, a more flagrant case than the first, Henry, with 
his usual quick originality, helped us out of the difficulty of 
inventing a distinctive name, by remarking that as we all 
had the ache of ^^the wurst sort/' that name was the best 
one for this uncanny spot. At the time we were travelling 
through caltle-ranche country, where every two or three 
days we would meet cavalcades of wild young Texan 
'' ranchers *' or cowboys. At the camp fireside, where 
topographical notes upon the country would, as usual, be 
exchanged, a laugh was frequently raised by the catch 
answer inquirers would receive, who on hearing us talk of 
the " sudden death" qualities of that 'er water at " worst 
sort cainp,'* they asked : '^ Worst sort of what camp ? ^' 

Among the 1879 camps I find another strangely named 
one, i.e. ^* Wisdom-tooth camp,*' where an acquaintance, 
to whom I have before referred, was laid up, cutting, at a 
somewhat late day in life, his masticating ivory. 



Life m Camp, 71 

Not a few were descriptive names. One instance will 
suffice : it was " Fish-in-bed camp/^ on the borders of 
'' Fish-in-bed lake/' where^ one fine September morning 
I caught a two-pound trout, and shot a fine wapiti stag, 
right from my ^' bed^" spread within a foot or two of its 
placid surface. The stag had come down to water in the 
early dawn, and, happening to see his outline through 
the mist, my Express ended his career. Half jokingly, I 
flung — half an hour or so later, at Port^s suggestion, just 
as the sun was tipping the crags overhead — my line into 
the shallow water at my side. A minute later a big lazy 
trout had committed suicide, obliging me to get up and 
land him. 

In judging these simple and decidedly unroraantic camp 
appellations, the reader must not forget that we were 
breathing the Western air, which is an effective vermin- 
killer in point of aesthetic sentiment. Most deadly of the 
men's caustic humour was that of young Henry. Let 
one instance explain what I mean. We had made camp 
in a more than usually beautiful spot near a lake, and I 
was sitting on one of the side panniers near the fire 
smoking my pipe and doing the lazy. Suddenly my 
meditations were interrupted by Port's voice informing me 
that the pack I was sitting on seemed to be on fire. 
Raising the lid, I found that one of the tin boxes contain* 
ing matches had got on fire, probably when the sack was 
thrown from the pack animal. I had been sitting on 
a volcano, for, cheek by jowl, with the match tin was 
the fifty pound powder-keg and the whiskey. Plenry, 
who saw that I was about to scold him, for I had told hirn. 
several times to keep the matches and the powder apart 
in the packs, to which he usually would answer, " I guess 



']2 Camps in the Rockies, 

if they do blow up, we'll find it out/' saved himself by 
his quick wit. His quizzical^ '^' By golly, that would have 
been rough on the whiskey/' turned the escape I had had 
at once into ridicule. It was my idea to call the camp, in 
view of the sufficiently narrow shave, " Pilgrim's Progress 
Camp," but that was too ^' tony " for the men, so I let 
them have their way, and the spot was henceforth known 
as the ^' Boss's go down to heaven camp." 

In the old world beautiful localities are usually dis- 
tinguished by euphonious a'ppellations that somehow give 
one an idea of the place which is not as a rule dis- 
appointed when we come to visit it. In the Atlantic 
States of America this is often carried to unpleasant ex- 
tremes. ]N"ames that carr}^ the weight of beauty or at least 
that of mellow old age are given to outrageously un- 
picturesque localities and glaringly new edifices. In the 
West, awaj^ from big-named cities, the other extreme is 
the rule. The old Coureurs de hois were the essence of 
practicalness unrelieved by a particle of imagination. 
We find such nam.es as six cailloux (the six pebbles) 
spoken of as SisJcyou, the Indian tribe Fois Brides are 
known as Boh Rulys, the Bois Blcmcs as Bob Longs. The 
river known to the Spanish of Mexico as Les Animas (the 
souls), and to the French as the Piirgatoire, is called by 
the western man, Picket-wire, reminding one rather of the 
frontier rendering of Wilkes Booth's words after shooting 
Lincoln, Sic senqjer tyrannis, i.e. into six serpents and a 
tarantula, 

A word or two is due to explain to those of my readers 
who may not have ^ravelled with a trapper pack-train, 
the nature of camps. There are three kinds ; the '*' travel- 
ling," the '' light-pack/' and the " permanent " camp. The 



Life in Camp. y^ 

first is the one made every evening wl ile en route, pitched 
at the termination of the day's travel, at the first suitable 
place that presents itself, where water^ wood^ and good 
grazing for the horses can be found. When the 'first- 
mentioned essential is absent, and a camp must be made 
to rest man and beast, it is called, as we have already 
heardj a diy camp — one of the most unsatisfactory ex- 
periences of Western travel. Where wood, not even the 
rank sagebrush or greasewood, or buffalo chips are pro- 
curable — a catastrophe, however, of rare occurrence — a 
cold camp is the result. The permayient one is where a 
stay from a day or two to several weeks is made. Light- 
pack camjjs are made when short branch trips become 
desirable. You take but quite the most necessary things — 
grub for two or three days, the blankets or skins of one bed 
to aocomraodate two men, and everj'thing is packed on one 
pack-horse. These are by far the most enjoyable ones ; 
for you can travel faster, are but slightly bothered with the 
pack-animals — for the single one you have with you, the 
steadiest of the lot, can be led — and jou can get over and 
through places where the whole train could not possibly 
succeed, except with considerable loss of time and great 
risk to the less sure-footed animals. We were constantly 
milking these light-pack camps. Often I would start off 
alone, or Port would accompany me, while the rest either 
t]a veiled on, and met me at a specified landmark, or made 
a permanent camp, with a view to trapping. On one or 
two occasions we *^ strung out '' oar camps even longer ; 
that is, we made several light-pack camps, each getting 
lighter as we did away with unnecessaries, and left behind 
us horses we did not want. Thus several times we had 
our stores cached at one place, 100 or 120 miles off; then 



74 Camps m the Rockies, 

we left SIX or seven horses, and a lot of unnecessaries^ in 
charge of Henry. Twenty miles further, the second man 
remained back with three horses, '^trapping a creek out;" 
while Port and I went twenty or thirty miles further, to 
some of the little lakes, where he and two pack-horses 
remained, with the same object ; my own goal being 
higher up, close to the snow- fields, where only Boreas, my 
favourite hunting pony, could get to. After an absence 
of one, two, or three days, I returned to Port ; and, 
taking what are technically called '* back tracks,'^ we 
picked up, seriatiniy the other three camps. This tele- 
scoping of camps is a very pleasant mode of giving some 
of 3^our horses the rest they are in want of, besides 
enabling the men and me to cover more ground than 
otherwise would be possible — they with their traps, and I 
with the rifle. 

Awkward, or unexpected, interruptions now and again 
disturb the connecting part of these light-pack camps. 
Thus, for instance, a snow storm would come on, and while 
it would be very bad in my neighbourhood, it would just 
" blow a little '' twenty or thirty miles off, where the 
*' outfit '^ was camped ; and hence, while they would act 
upon the pre-arranged plan, and move on a day or two's 
travel to. where we were to meet, the storm would im- 
prison me in my camp, which, generally, of the very 
lightest order, consisted of a couple of robes, a cup, plate, 
and a frying-pan. If my little store of grub, flour, 
coffee, and sugar held out, and a quarter of a Bighorn or 
a Blacktail was festooning the nearest tree, all well and 
good ; but if flour ran short, and I had killed no game 
before the storm surprised me, the consequences were 
short commons, and a bad time generally. I remember 



Life in Camp, * 75 

on both of my last trips, such *^ disvobulations/' as the men 
called them, breaking grub and all other connexions in a 
most tyrannical and sudden manner— days that were not 
as pleasant to live through as they are now in the retro- 
spect. 

With us, travel partook of the usual features of ex- 
ploration. None of us had ever been through or near 
the districts we were about visiting. We had nothing 
to guide us, for the only faulty chart that at the time 
existed of the Upper Wind River and Sierra Soshone 
country — a copy of which I had procured through 
the kind offices of the General then commanding the 
North- Western Division, had, along with another essential 
commodity, i.e. my miniature medicine-case, being en- 
gulfed during one of the crossings of the Big Wind 
River, and, no doubt, had long found their way into the 
Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean. And even had we 
retained the chart's services it would not have helped us, 
for not only, as I subsequently discovered, was it faulty, 
but its scale was much too small to be serviceable for 
mapping out the daily course.' Every two or three days 
we would sight a great peak, such as Fremont's, or 
the Teton ; and as we knew where they were, the lay 
of the country could be marked by those means. The 
Big Wind River mountains afforded us all the sport 
we wanted. The men found rare trapping ground, 
and I was kept busy with the big heads of Wapiti 
and Bighorn — events of which I shall presently have 
to speak in a more detailed manner. 



* Even to-day there exists no serviceable map of the whole Wind 
River and Sierra Soshone country. 



76 &amps in the Rockies, 

To most men the life I led would appear undoubtedly 
the essence of old-fashioned crabbedness. And yet if 
many of them could for once experience the glorious sense 
of freedom that fills the whole being in those far-off wilds 
which crown the great dome of a vast Continent, I think 
they would presently look back upon idle, colourless, city 
existence in a murky and vitiated atmosphere, no longer 
as the brightest and most joyous of existences, but rather 
as one which to endure is a necessary evil, but from which 
to escape fills you with the light-hearted transport of your 
schoolboy days. 

What, for instance, can be more delightful to the lover 
of sport and of JN^ature than a long day's ramble about 
Timberline, in the clear, sparkling atmosphere of those 
altitudes. 

If you are an admirer of forest scenery, there are vast 
stretches of literally trackless forests. Some composed of 
veteran spruce pine, where the trees grow close together, 
and you can wander for miles without catching sight of 
the sky; others, on the uppermost reaches of timber 
vegetation, spread over the upland slopes in more 
detached masses, patches of snow still lingering in gulches 
on the northern declivities of the range. Here the scenery 
resembles Alpine landscape : the Wengeren Alp repro- 
duced on the summit of the Eockies. If you are a lover 
of the curious in Nature, visit yonder stretches of burnt 
forest, set afire probably by a July or August thunder- 
storm. If not endowed with rare endurance and provided 
with an axe, you will fail to penetrate very far into the 
maze of fallen trees ; and should there be a strong breeze 
blowing, the crashing of lifeless trees who, though their 
roots are charred to cinders, have somehow retained an 



Life in Camp. 77 

upriglit position, will warn you not to venture into the 
devastated wood. 

Alpine lake scenery is replete with charming details, and 
here among the hundreds of lakelets you have the oppor- 
tunity of studying their character in a diversity repre- 
sented in very few places I know of. [N^umerous as they 
are, no two are alike in expression. Let the surroundings 
be as analogous as two drops of their water, yet a subtle 
something gives identity to each. In not a i^^ instances 
it will be so unappreciable that words cannot depict the 
difference. Or again, there will be a curve of the shore, a 
peculiar tint of the water, the presence or absence of a 
wooded promontory, the, great trunk of an uprooted pine, 
half floating on the placid surface, half stranded on the 
pebbly beach; while on the next this wreck of Nature will 
be replaced by a colony of quaintly-tufted duck, one and 
all specific features, endowing the picture with a distinct 
personality. One lake you will see with a great Wapiti 
stag or quaintly uncouth Moose ^ standing knee-deep in 
the water, or the presence of beaver will give it the pecu- 
liar charm of inhabitedness ; while the next one, just as 
picturesquely situated, will have about it a lifeless, deso- 
late air, that detracts from its idyllic loveliness. Some 
are shut in by beetling walls of great height, which 
impress you with a sense of prison-like melancholy. 
In the middle of one, I remember, a rocky tooth rose from 
the water in weird form. On the top an eagle had built 
its nest ; reminding me of the historical Old Hocky 
Mountain eagle, the sole inhabitant of an island below 

* In the Northern extremity of the Big Wind Kiver chain Moose 
can now and again be seen ; it is about the most southernmost point 
to which they extend. 



yS Camps in the Rockies, 

one of the first falls of the Missouri, in Montana. The 
bird and its nest was minutely described by the first 
explorers of the West, Lewis and Clarke, who penetrated 
to the headwaters of the great river in 1805.* Other 
lakes, higl.er up above timber-line, surrounded by Titanic 
boulders and rocks, thrown together in amazing confusion, 
look as inhospitable as irheir surroundings are savage. 
Some are deep, and their water of an exquisite beryl blue 
and of such crystal clearness, that from overhanging cliifs 
your gaze penetrates to a depth of astonishing profundity; 
others are shallow and black-looking, with no visible 
afflux or influx ; some swarm with fish, others lack every 
sign of Kving thing in or around their gloomy depths ; 
and not a beaver-sign, not a track of Wapiti, Bighorn, 
or Deer is visible on the shore. In several instances I 
found them to lie in tiers over each other ; thus on the 
southern slopes of what I believe is Union peak there are 
no less than eleven small lakelets lying in six tiers over 
each other. The lowest is at an altitude of about ten, the 
highest close to 12,000 feet, huge perpendicular steps in 
the mountain formation separating each set. Such is the 
diversified character of these mountain tarns, on many of 
which the eye of white man had presumably never rested. 
Let the reader stretch himself at my side, on the soft 
sward on the banks of such a tranquil mountain lake, 
10,000 feet above the Atlantic and Pacific, to one, or per- 

* Most of the subsequent explorers describe this bird, or at least 
what they supposed to be the same bird. Thus Reynolds, who saw 
him in 1860, and Eoberts in 1872, speak of h im as crippled by age, 
and the latter reports his pinions as badly .dilapidated. A later 
traveller says : The jolly old sentinel, passing away the golden days 
of a ripe age in one eternal 4th of July, looked old enough to have 
participated in the affair at Bunker Hill 1 



Life in Camp. 79 

haps to both of which, it sends its waters. It is a lovely 
autumn afternoon ; the forenoon''s stalk has been a suc- 
cessful one, for yonder, his noble antlers half immersed in 
the limpid waters of the lake, lies stretched out the 
majestic form of a master of the forest, a giant among 
Wapiti. Arduous has been the stalk after the wary 
monarch of the woods, and many a smaller brother escaped 
with his life as, bent upon bagging the big one, I stepped 
with the noiseless tread of moccasined feet through the 
dense timber or along the creeks — for my guide, the fresh 
tracks of my quarry ; for my sole companion, the old 
Express rifle which has rolled over many a one before. 

An eight-hours' stalk in the keen, bracing atmosphere 
of these altitudes makes one hungry, and the slices of 
Bighorn meat and the chunks of camp-baked bread, washed 
down by the contents of a battered old hunting-flask, 
disappear with rapidity — adding, when the appetite is once 
appeased and the pipe is set ablaze, fresh beauties to the 
lovely scene rolled out before me. The tranquil lake, 
with not a ripple on it, stretches away to the distant 
abruptly-rising clifis, that lead up to snow-fields and to 
the grandly built-up peak. The lake is encircled on three 
sides by an unbroken chain of sombre pine forest, and the 
little bays, and wooded forelands jutting out into the 
water, are fringed with groves of the hardy willow peculiar 
to these altitudes. 

With hands crossed under my head I lie there, and let 
the gentlest of breezes, soughing through the tapering 
tops of the stately pines, play with the open collar of my 
flannel shirt. Utter seclusion has always great charms, 
and nowhere more so than. here. The nearest human 
habitation is ten days'* ride ofi", and for many weeks not a 



8o Canvbs in the Rockies, 



■r^ 



strange human being has crossed ray path. And yet this 
loneliness is not oppressive, for dumb friends break the 
monotony and enchain attention. As the sun sinks, gilding 
the Cyclopean masonry of the buttresses oyerhead, my 
chum and special crony, the '^ old man " beaver, with 
his spouse and kittens, will presently issue forth from 
their underground habitation, and furrow the glassy sur- 
face of the lake with silvery streaks as they swim from 
bank to bank, cutting or collecting feedsticks — the winter's 
provender— or tall saplings to repair, on the most approved 
principles of beaver hydrostatics, some damage to the 
family dam. My friends of the deer tribe are sure to come 
down to the water ; and if the day has been warm, or the 
flies and mosquitoes troublesome in the dense timber to 
which most game retires during noon, I shall witness such 
a bathing scene as would make the heart of a Landseer 
throb. The wary otter, out on his foraging expedition, 
is creeping along the banks of the lake, and woe to the 
trout that comes within the reach of his extraordinarily 
agile grab. 

A flight of wild geese, wanderers from northern latitudes 
bent for the south, alight on the lake, the loud splash of 
their descent frightening away the beaver and a quaint 
little family of blue- winged teal, who have been circling 
and diving about for the last hour or two in the little bay, 
not ten yards from where I am lying, skimming over 
the water, uttering their low plaintive "teat, teat," the 
blue of their wings glistening like polished steel. They 
disappear at last at the end of a long silvery pathway 
made by their wings on the glass-like suiface. * 

It is remarkable that these beauhful birds seem equally at 
home in the extreme north as in the centre of America. Duiing 



Life in Camp, 81 

Tlie gentle breeze lias died away, as it often does after 
tlie sun has set. The glorious colours, tinting the heavens 
with ever-changing brilliancy, have at last given way to 
that peculiar clearness of the atmosphere which lights up 
the distant snow-clad peak with an ashen hue, and makes 
the forest seem nearer to us than ever. Night is closing 
in apace, a gauzy mist rises from the lake, while stray 
stars are already visible, reminding me that I have a long 
walk to camp, across strange country. The pipe is re-filled, 
and shouldering my rifle I stroll homewards. Crossing 
long stretches of open upland, dark forms of deer or 
elk flit hither and thither, and as likely as not old 
Ephraim, the grizzly of the Rockies is setting out on his 
nocturnal raid. The bold outline of yonder peak is a 
landmark, and the north star my guide, leading me 
through the forest, across gulches, and along the gloomy 
depth of canyons as safely as had I a beaten trail before me. 
The sombre woods, looking so silent and gloomy from the 
distance, are, as I enter them, alive with strange noises. 
My moccasined feet do not allow me to walk very fast, for 
there is a wealth of sharp pointed branches strewing the 
ground, and in the darlaiess, with only fitful moonbeams 
finding their way through the network of pines, the foot 
instinctively seeks its way in a cautious manner. Stealthily 

the breeding season they are as plentiful on the Saskatchewan as 
they are at the mouth of the Mississippi. Audubon says that they 
are to be found as far north as the 57th parallel, and as far south as 
the island of Cuba. Unlike the green-winged teal, which brave the 
coldest weather, they depart at the first sign of ice. It is interesting 
to note that Audubon and Bachman believed that the habits of the 
blue-winged teal proved a double migration. On the highland lakes 
to which I refer I have often seen them. They swim very buoyantly, 
and generally close together. 

G 



82 Camps in the Rockies. 

I thread my way through the timber, while around me is 
to be heard that quaintest of sounds emitted by the 
Wapiti stag at this season of the year. At night, in the 
silent forest, this tone, not unlike the notes of an ^olian 
harp, has a weird charm about it, that matches well the 
grand melancholy vastness of Western mountain landscape. 
M}^ faithful guide-star leads me past a small forest tarn, a 
mere pool in comparison to the one just left. Here again 
there is a family of beaver at their nocturnal work of dam- 
building; and as I proceed along the shore studded with, 
willows, the paterfamilias crosses the mirror»like surface lit 
Tip by the bright moonlight, infinitely brighter than in 
the Old Worlds a silvery ripple marking the course of the 
dark bullet-shaped head — all that is visible of the indefati- 
gable little labourer. He is making for a willow-bush a 
yard or so from me, where, ready for transportation, lie a 
number of slender stems, from two to seven feet long, 
which he has cut under water during daytime. Watching 
him as I stand motionless, hidden by a friendly shadow, he 
raises himself out of the water, his silken coat, reflecting 
the bright moonbeams, appearing as of burnished silver. 
[Firmly grasping between his powerful teeth a stem at the 
big end, where it is some inch and a half in diameter, he 
dives backwards and proceeds to return to his dam, with the 
leafy stem trailing beside him. A twig breaks under my 
weight, and the noise frightens the beaver, who, with a 
loud slap of his broad tail on the water, dives under, 
leaving the stem to float in the centre of gradually widen- 
ing circles, to mark the spot where the cautious animal 
sought safety in his element. The noise has not only 
disturbed the beaver, but also a fine Wapiti stag, who has 
been lurking unobserved in the thick undergrowth near 



Life in Cmnp, ^'i^ 

me, where lie failed to scent or hear my approacli. "With 
one grand bound he has cleared the brush, and is standing 
up to his knees in the lake, his whole attitude that of keen 
watching. He is a noble fellow — an old warrior, too, for 
his shaggy neck is nearly twice the usual size, and one of 
the main prongs of his massive antlers is broken off short. 
Full five minutes he stands there, gazing intently towards 
the tree under whose sweeping boughs I am standing. 
The breeze is favourable, and the deep shadow hides my 
form so effectually, that, notwithstanding my proximity, 
he cannot see his human foe. 

Stepping out from behind the tree, I snap my fingers. 
A toss of the head, and the stag is off, crashing madly 
through the timber in his headlong flight, while the 
peculiar noise of his antlers striking against the reverbe- 
rating trunks of lofty pines, can be heard for some time. 

Other strange sounds fall on the ear as I proceed with 
quickened step towards camp, sounds that you never hear 
in daytime, when, usuall}^ oppressive stillness reigns in the 
great upland forests. The hoot of the owl is one of the 
most quaintly weird ; but it is not like the unearthly 
wail of the puma, or mountain lion, demouiacal and ghoul- 
like as no other sound in the wide realm of nature. As it 
re-echoes through the forests you involuntarily shudder, for 
it is more like a woman''s long-drawn and piteous cry of 
terrible anguish than any other sound you could liken it 
to. Once heard, it will never be forgotten ; and it can no 
more be compared to the jabber of the cayote or the howl 
of the hyena, than a baby's cry of displeasure resembles its 
mother's piercing shriek of terror as she sees the little one 
in a position of danger. Out only at night, they are of all 
beasts of prey the most watchful, and most difficult to 

G 2 



84 Camps in the Rockies. 

shoot ; and though their fearful call, in very close vicinity, 
has frequently stampeded our horses, and startled some of us 
from sleep, I have only been near enough to shoot, and kill, 
one single specimen in all my wanderings. Half an hour 
more, and I reach the last stretch of meadow, bathed in 
a flood of moonlight. Grazing on it in peaceful quiet are 
our trusty friends the horses. From afar they have seen 
mOj and their snorts show their watchfulness ; for here the 
grizzly is at home, and pony meat is better than ants and 
berries. My well-known voice pacifies them, however, at 
once, and brings the old horse, my favourite, trotting up 
to me to get his wonted piece of bread, while the two 
colts, favourite playfellows of his, dash past me in a 
spirited race, their heels high up in the air. Both these 
lively young animals, general pets of the camp, were foaled 
on the trip, and, wonderful to say, managed to outlive 
great hardships. The commotion among the faithful 
workers has been noticed in camp by the two watch-dogs, 
well trained to their work. They dash out into the dark- 
ness ; but their angry bay changes into a bark of pleasure 
and welcome as they recognize me, and, whining with 
doggish delight, bound towards the belated wanderer. 

Half a dozen big trunks of dry Alpine cedar- wood have 
been thrown on the fire by the men — a sure sign that supper 
is ready, for no cooking can be done at a blaze as big as a 
small loghouse afire — and the broad flames leap high up, 
licking the far-reaching branches of the next pine. 

The camp scene, as I see it from the dark recess of the 
forest, bathed in the brightest of lights, and surrounded 
by shadows of quaint shape and varying efiect, is a 
picturesque sight. There is little about it that reminds 
one of civilization — no tent, camp-stools, and other luxuries 



Life in Camp, 85 

of modern *' campers," strew tlie ground. The two men 
and the boy, all aglow with Rembrandt colours, are wild 
rough-looking customers, their six-shooters in their belts, 
and their rifles leaning against a handy tree. They have 
finished their supper — for, having a very erratic *' boss," 
they never wait for him — and are grouped round the fire, 
smoking the pipe of good-fellowship ere they begin the 
work of the evening. A dozen steel traps and a pile of 
fur gleaming with silvery sheen, as the silken coats of 
several beaver and one wolverine catch the light, are 
scattered about at their feet. Two hours' work for two 
men means that heap, for the animals have to be skinned 
most carefulh^ and the peltry stretched and pegged out. 
After my own supper, of a panful of trout fried in bear's 
fat, and a tender loin steak of a bighorn, has been done 
justice to, my briar — tied with a piece of buck-string 
round my neck, for pipes have a most uncanny knack of 
getting lost, and this one is the last but one out of the half- 
dozen T started with — is pulled forth, filled, and its comfort- 
in g contents are lighted at an ember from the bright log-fire. 
Leaning back in the hollow of my saddle, which has 
furnished me with a convenient prop during the meal, the 
sporting news of the past twelve hours is exchanged. 
The men are no great arithmeticians ; so, after counting 
the heap of peUiy, and making a rapid summary, I help 
them to form a correct, estimate of their take, and of the 
precise number of dollars their day's labour has put them 
ahead. My own brief tale is soon told : " Jumped a 
grizzly, missed a good head, but got a better one/' and, 
while the plans for the morrow, the fetching in of the 
aforesaid good head, and the strategical distribution of 
the entire stock of traps, are being duly matured in council, 



86 Camps in the Rockies^ 

time has passed, and I must fain turn to my several little 
camp duties. 

The evening wears on, and as the lazy ones watcli the 
glittering skinning knife busily at work — chaff the only 
plaister, if the keen edge of the oddly-shaped tool peels 
the wrong hide — I presently set out to take a last look 
at our horses, and at our only watch, the " dipper j"*' as the 
constellation of the Great Bear is called oat West, and 
which, by its varying positions indicates time as correctly 
as the sun at daytime. Everything is quiet; the horses 
are grazing peacefully, and the only audible sound we can 
hear is the distant whistling of Wapiti. Dragging behind 
me as I return to camp a dead pine, I pile it on the 
fire, and by the bright flames which leap up, the bear and 
buffalo-skin bed, is smoothed and occupied. Soon, wonder- 
fully soon, the sound sleep of the Rocky Mountains hushea 
ibe camp* 



CHAPTER IV. 

OUR DUMB J^'RIENDS IN CAMP. 

Our horses on the glade — Boreas, my favourite horse — His origin and 
developmant — His good and bad qualities — Baldfaced Hattie— 
Vixenish temper — Getting bucked off — Some of our other horses 
— The rattlesnake and its peculiarities — The skunk and his indi- 
viduality. 

Hitherto I have spoken of our faithful dumb helpmates 
in a very casual manner, hardly worthy of the important 
place they necessarily occupy in the record of our trip ; so 
ere winter snows, long weary rides, and the scantiest of 
" feed " have reduced their plump outline to anatomy 
woeful to behold, let us make their acquaintance. 

"We have not far to go, for there, with grass reaching 
half-way up their knees, they are rambling over the forest 
glade opening on a little Alpine lake. They are ap- 
parently enjoying to the full the " shining hours *' of the 
long afternoon. 

It is an off-day, or rather an off-afternoon, for an early 
ride of twelve miles has brought us hither long before 
noon. Charmed by the beauty of the spot and the rich- 
ness of the feed, we have for once metamorphosed, in the 
delightfully independent manner of our travel, what was 



88 Camps in the Rockies. 

intended only as a noon camp into a night camp, tlius 
giving us and our horses a long, unbroken afternoon of 
welcome rest. An ample repast has laid a pleasantly 
substantial fond for an idle spell with our pipe and our 
thous^hts. 

IN'ot often did I indulge voluntarily in such hours of 
complete, downright laziness; for once, however, I suc- 
cumbed to the temptation. A stately pine-tree, standing 
alone, and erect as a sentinel, in the centre of the forest- 
girt glade which rises in swelling lines from the perfectly 
smooth surface of the lake, offers an invitingly shady 
bower ; for though we are in close proximity to snow- 
fields, and only a week has passed since the last snow- 
storm buried us for two days, yet, during the noon hours 
of the gloriously bright September day, shade is acceptable. 
So, armed with my recently replenished tobacco-pouGh_, I 
retire under the drooping boughs of the pine, and not^ as 
the men apparently expected, to the crags overhead or to 
the quiet sombre forests, where a Bighorn, or a Wapiti, or 
even a Grizzly, would perhaps reward a leisurely afternoon's 
stalk. " Guess the boss has eaten too much dinner," is a 
remark overheard by me as I stride towards my tree; it 
shows, I sadly fear, of what ur.poetic elements your true 
frontiersman's character is composed. 

I am soon lying on my back, hands folded under mj'' head, 
and knees crossed on high, my moccasinecl feet forming a 
buff and very domestic foreground to as pretty a vista of 
Alpine scenery and genuine mountain life as pen can 
sketch. Between the tree and the pebble-strewn shore of 
the tarn, its forested shores curving in and out around 
beryl-green baj^s and pine-crowned promontories, there is 
the sloping meadow on whicli the horses are feeding. 



K)^tr Dumb Fi tends in Camp. 89 

With whom shall I commence? Who but Boreas, my 
old favourite, is worthy to take the first place ? He is a 
"buckskin," or claybank-coloured,^ cob-built pony. His 
sturdy exterior, the mould of his shoulders and strong 
limbs, betray endurance, but not fleetness ; and ten 
minutes on his back would convince you that you are 
astride of a remarkably lazy horse. 

But there is a good side to every unpleasant event, and 
primitive trapper -life teaches you to hunt up both aspects 
of the little trials that may overwhelm you. The good 
point of this laziness is, that it keeps him in a far better 
condition than were he a more willing or spirited animal. 

Boreas, as I have said^ cannot exactly be called a fast 
horse. When I was " trading ^' for him the vendor asked me, 
*' Xin ye ride, stranger ? '' Rather a useless sort of ques- 
tion, I thought, for I had just dismounted from trying his 
paces in riiy habitually cautious manner ; and having found 
hiin. an essentially quiet horse, I owned, with a returning 
Wf*ve of braver}^ that I thought I could '* a little,'^ 
adding the query whether, in his opinion, I should be able 
to run antelope with him ? For I was then still filled with 
the tenderfoot's passion of breaking down horses and not 
getting antelopes ; and his answer, given in the dry 
Western intonation, while a sort of far-away yearning 
look stole over his features, ran thus : *' In course you kin, 
stranger, and abetter cayuse for that y'er ^ntlope running 
you jist niver forked. No darned ^ntlope could live near 
him ; and if ye engineer him right up and down, when you 

* This neutral tint is by far the best colour for a shooting pony, a 
matter of considerable importance. To one who has no experience, 
the colour would seem far too light ; but this is not the case, as the 
most ordinary trial will show. 



90 Camps in the Rockies, 

glimpse a band, ye'll have all tlie sport ye want, and needn't 
hold him either, for fast running niver did hurt him/' ' 
I hadn't been in the West very long when those words 
were addressed to me, so I thought there was just a little 
bit of exaggeration about that " living '■* business of the 
antelopes, who, as I had found out^ required remarkably 
fleet horses to keep them as much as in sight. Two days 
afterwards I had opportunity to try the powers of my new 
acquisition after the fleet game of the Plains. It was my 
turn to have that far-away yearning look steal over my 
features. His former owner's words came true. The ante- 
lope did not continue to live near him. I had all the sport 
I wanted, and the speed of the chace no more hurt my steed 
than did the excitement attendant upon it. Some Texas 
cowboys, who watched me from a distance, subsequently 
made some considerate inquiries, showing what a lively' 
interest they had taken in my sport. They wanted to 
know whether I had driven stakes into the ground to 
see that I was moving ; and whether I felt very tired, for 
*' that six-year-old club had no slouch of a lazy time, and 
them legs did seem kinder willin' to shove the old boss 
along.'^ Such, and more, were their unkind remarks. 
They pained me ; and while I now perfectly understood 
why my horse's name was " Bibleback," ^ I forthwith 
decided to change it to a more suitable one, the name 

2 This " never did hurt him,'' was used, as I afterwards learnt, in 
the usual Western sense, indicating quite something else than I 
inferred. The frontiersman says of an irreligious fellow : " Religion 
never hurt him ; " or of a bumptious official, — " That man's office ia 
hurting him." 

3 When I asked the vendor why he was called " Bibleback," he 
replied in his twangy voice : — " Wa'li, stranger, I reckon because the 
hefty (weighty) preachin' that's been done on his yar back.*' 



Our Dumb Friends in Camp, 9 1 

V 

which the reader already knows. Boreas was not an 
expensive horse as Western horses go ; he stood, or rather, 
as I am still his owner, he stands me in just fort3^-five 
dollars (£9). The way I got him was rather singular. On 
starting on my first trip I had invested in a more expensive 
animal named Dickie. From causes then inexplicable 
Dickie somehow went dead lame before we were three days 
out, and I had either to ride a spare but uncomfortably 
frisky cayuse, with a lot of unbrokenness clinging about 
its vicious nature, or sit on the waggon, while my late 
purchase was tied to the rear of the " schooner.^' Fate 
decreed that we should meet a few days later a " bull- 
whacking outfit '^ — a convoy of heavy ox- waggons, on their 
way to one of the outlying frontier forts with Government 
stores. Among the half-dozen horses that were running 
loose behind the long string of huge waggons was the 
" cla3^bank " Bibleback. He was not much to look at ; 
lean, shaggy- coated, he looked every inch a "bull- 
whacker's cayuse,^'' but he was the best of the lot. The 
leader, or "waggon-boss,^"' a lauky Arkansian, came 
strolling down to our camp, and after an apparently very 
careless survey of the lame one, and a long string of hard 
words to show that he did not belie his occupation or 
origin, presently opened on the trade. 

*' Trading,'^ I must here mention, is the favourite 
amusement of your genuine Western man. In other 
words, it is barter in kind, now and again with a dollar or 
two thrown in to kick the beam if it so be wanted, and 
ahvays with a drink to finish up. Everythiag, or very 
nearly everything, the frontiersman owns is " traded.''* 
His " ranche," or log-house home, is probably sw^apped for 
an old-pattern Winchester repeater, *' as wouldn't shoot 



92 Camps in the Rockies, 

straight even round tlie corner/' as he will privately 
inform you with a wink ; and when you ask way the other 
party had not tried its shooting qualities, he tells you — 
" Fact is, stranger, thar wasn't anything but his hat to 
shoot at (on the level and stoneless Plains), and that was 
so full of holes as would have taken all the yar hats in 
cryation set up behind it to show a bullet hole ; so the old 
man took the shooter along mor'n (more for) its looks." 
To us, who are supposed to possess the much-desired articles 
of barter — whiskey, powder, or cartridges, and the every- 
day " grub " items, such as flour, coffee, and sugar — some 
typical " trades " were offered. For our camp-stove and 
six pounds of coffee we could once have got a pack-mule ; 
for a horse and a gallon of our precious whiskey, a silver- 
mine, consisting of six ^' recorded" claims, were offered; 
and when we showed some hesitation, a pair of boots was 
added to the allures of the mine. 

We could have become '^ house-owners " ten times over, 
at trades varying between a horse, a pint of whiskey, 
or a hundred "Winchester cartridges. To trade coats, 
saddles, blankets, harness, spurs, for hats, cartridges, six- 
shooters, coffee-miUs, or frying-pans, with a horn-handled 
spoon or a pewter plate thrown in to make a level trade 
of it, seems to be the legitimate source of most of the 
possessions of the poorer ranks of the frontier population. 
But the most flourishing of all trades is the one in horse- 
flesh, i.e. an exchange of horses, the minor good quali- 
ties of the one, should there be any great difference in 
their merits, being made up if possible by 'cuteness on the 
part of its owner. I have often watched these '^ horse 
trades," and every time came away a '' better *' man, at 
least in the Western sense of the word. Naturally each. 



Otcr Dumb Friends in Camp, 93 

of the traders thinks himself the 'cuter of the two ; both 
laugh in their sleeves at the stupidity of the other, both 
grumble to each other's face^ and finally, both are gene- 
rally equally unscrupulous in taking advantage of pre- 
vious knowledge of little vices which their property 
happens to possess. In my own case — for I have yet to 
narrate on what basis Boreas was traded for Dickie — the 
blemishes were, alas ! too apparent, as^ tied to the hind 
end of the waggon, the latter limped along in a most 
woebegone fashion. The '^steer smashing trainboss " 
looked me squarely in the eye when I told him, in reply 
to his question, that when I started, the horse was per- 
fectly sound, and had gone lame the third day out — a 
statement which he seemed to believe. More I could not 
tell about the cause of the lameness^ which was on his 
near front leg, for we had no opportunity to consult a 
Vet. to decide the nice question whether the mischief 
was a mere passing or a serious shoulder lameness. 
His fine sleek exterior and capital points, being an expen- 
sive horse, however, had made a deep impression upon 
the bull-guiding genius, hence his hints that perhaps we 
might make a level trade between the sound Bibleback 
and the lame Dickie — who not only was perfectly useless 
to me in his present condition, but also a source of bother — 
overjoyed me. Had he known what a green one he had 
to deal with, he could have got five-and -twenty dollars 
and Dickie for the sound Bibleback, and indeed I had 
expressed myself to this efiect to my companions. Sup- 
pressing my pleasurable emotions, though I dared not 
look at the rest of the party lest I should laugh, I had 
the unconscionable impudence to demand five dollars and 
the sound horse for the lame one. This settled the 



94 Camps in the Rockies. 

matter, for had I closed at once on the level trade, the 
bullwh acker would have perceived my eagerness, and 
probably would have backed out, or the five or more 
dollars would have been on his side instead of mine. As 
it was we had ten minutes' higgling over the "fiver," 
which I finally waived, and Bibleback changed owners on 
a level trade — my first, and remembering certain subse- 
quent transactions, by no means my worst trade in horse- 
flesh out "West. A month later nobody would have recog- 
nized in the sleek, sturdy, " bob- tailed '' cob Boreas, the ill- 
conditioned gaunt Bibleback. Not the same could be said 
of Dickie, for his injury turned out to be an incurable 
shoulder lameness, from which he had previously suffered 
and been temporarily cured previous to my getting him. 
When months afterwards I visited the Fort for which my 
bullwhacking friend was bound, who should be offered to 
me, as a quite unusually inviting bargain, but Dickie 
"just gone a bit lame," who, according to the account I 
received, bad made the fortune of the whiskey-store keeper 
by the innumerable " trade ^' drinks called forth by his so 
frequently changing hands. In tbe three months that had 
intervened, everybody in the Fort and the country about 
seemed to have owned him ; and when I told the then 
possessor that I was the person who had introduced 
Dickie to tbat section of Wyoming, he looked at me, as 
much as to say, "Now tbat iconH wash, Sireebob ; you 
ain't clever enough for that — no, not by half, you bet.''^ 

Boreas's origin is, as I have said, the lowest of the low, 
for out West a bullwhacker's horse is on a par with the 
slowest " growler's " nag in murky London streets ; and a 
bullwhacker's spare horse sinks him to a level lower than 
the costermonger's much abused specimen of beasts born 



Our Dumb Friends in Camp, 95 

to a crnel and degenerate fate. T^otv/ithstanding these 
plebeian connexions, lie is^ however, above price to me, for 
he has turned out a jewel among sliooting-ponies. His 
endurance, wind, surefootedness, and a singularly deve- 
loped bump of locality, are beyond praise ; and while now 
and again certain vices — for what strong character, either 
human or equine, has not some failings ? — come to the fore 
in an unpleasant manner, they yet contribute in an in- 
direct way to make him what he is. He has taken to 
hunting, as were he '^ riz ^^ to it from his earliest colt-days. 
Game in sights it is wonderful to see how the old fellow 
warms up to his work, for his speed has amazingly in- 
creased since those '* stake-driving days." But it is not on 
the level or broken, but on the steep mountain slopes, or 
in the dense timber, that his qualities shine forth. I think 
very few horses have executed such mountaineering feats 
as my old four-footed friend, for he has been in places 
where a good many two-footed beings I know would not 
care to venture. If I see game, and the final approach has 
to be performed on foot^ I slide from his back, drop the 
reins over his head, and am off. Let me be absent one 
hour or ten hours, he will be there when I return, and 
welcome me with that peculiar, remarkably unmusical, 
sawbnck " nicker " of his, by which I could tell him out 
of a thousand horses. When I say he will be there, I must 
except one contingency, the result of his innate dislike to 
grizzly. If one of that race is about, then he will not be 
there ; but be making good, steady time back to camp. 
He does not mind black or brown bear, and for wolves he 
has rather a liking ; but between him and Uncle Ephraim 
there is no love lost. He scents him at a distance ; and tlie 
wriggle of his body toss of his head; and snort by which 



96 Camps in the Rockies, 

he testifies Ms discovery, has served on more than one 
occasion as a welcome signal. 

Some trappers manage to train their hunting-horses to 
follow them about like dogs. In this I have succeeded 
only partially^ a patch of good grazing- ground upsetting 
all my teachings. Another peculiarity is his deeply- rooted 
aversion to be packed with more than a certain quantity of 
game. With unvarying regularity he draws the line at 
about sixty pounds ; so if he already has the hind-quarters 
of a bighorn or of a mule- deer sluDg to his saddle, and he 
perceives me approaching with a fresh load, he just gives 
one toss of his head and a swish of his tail, and, let the 
distance be half a mile or ten miles, he proceeds to lead 
the way home, his head kept high so as not to step on the 
reins. Now and again if he is in particularly good 
humour, and he has perceived that I have thrown away 
the second load, he will, after a mile or two, let me regain 
the saddle, but I cannot bet on that as a certainty; on the 
whole, I think I would rather stake " a pile " on the con- 
trary. In carap, when he reaches it, they well know what 
has occurred. If the reins are fastened fco the spring buckle 
of which I have already spoken, they know the boss has 
sent him home ; bat if they are dragging, and no game fes- 
toons his saddle, thej^ are informed that he " struck bar ;'* 
while if he is laden with the usual hind-quarters, they 
know the boss has shot a second beast, and will presently 
appear very heated, and brimful of uncharitableness. 

His bump of locality is perhaps^ the most extraordinary 
of his gifts ; unfortunately he only chooses to develop it 
on the home stretch. Let the distance be one or thirty 
miles — let the ground be ever so puzzling, the rocks ever 
so steep, the forest dense and full of windfalls or treach-, 



Our Dumb Friends in Camp, 97 

erous mire-holes, the snow-storm fierce^ or the mountain 
fog of pea-soup consistency, Boreas carries me, at day or 
at night, safe and sound, if he knows his head is turned 
homeward. T'other way it takes, as my men jokingly 
assert,, three-inch rowelled spurs and a three-foot oak-club ; 
but that is a sad exaggeration. The only two times I have 
really been lost — once in a very dense nsountain-fog, the 
other time in a bad snow-storm — was owing to my doubt- 
ing the proficiency of Boreas's path-finding abilities. 
On the first occasion I thought I knew the way better 
than he did, for I had been twice over the ground on foot, 
and he had only been once ; while the other time I let my 
course be governed by my compass, rather than by the un- 
mistakable pulls to one side by which Boreas intimated 
his non-acquiescence with the direction. As it turned out, 
he was right and the compass wrong, the latter being 
unsettled by the presence of large masses of iron in the 
rocks. On both occasions I spent the night out at con- 
siderable altitude^ and I can tell you that now I know 
better than to pull rein when once I am on the home 
turn. 

Grizzlies, as I have said, he detested, and one of the 
most uncomfortable incidents of my protracted acquaintance 
with him was caused by this apparently unprovoked dis- 
like. I was out after bighorn, and had left Boreas at the 
base of some steep cliffs. On my return six or seven hours 
afterwards, his presence, as the Irishman said, was con- 
spicuous by his absence. The soft soil betrayed the cause— 
the tracks of an adult grizzly. The distance k) camp was 
not very great, some eight or nine miles. Before I reached 
camp I heard signal-shots,'' which I promptly answered ; 
■* An advisable precaution for travelling through the wikls is, to 

H 



98 Camps in the Rockies. 

and inferring that something serious had happened at camp^ 
I hastened down. I found the men standing round Boreas, 
who had reached camp in a state considerably the worse 
for a very hasty flight through dense timber and rolls down 
precipitous slopes, '''looking/^ as tliey declared, " as if he 
had fallen down and trampled on his nose/' He was 
bruised ail over, and bleeding from various cuts, and of 
his accoutrements next to nothing was lefL His bridle 
was wrcDched off short, his saddle blanket was gone, and 
of the saddle absolutely nothing left but the cinch e, or 
girth, and splinters of wood, and those were astride of his 
belly. Arriving in this sorry state, the men fancied some- 
thing had happened to me — that, in fact, I had " gone up '' 
in consequence of some misadventure, and hence were 
greatly relieved when, after several ineffectual signals, 
they heard my answering shots just as they were starting 
out to look for what remained of m%. We had only one 
spare saddle in the outfit, and that was only the "tree'' 
or frame of an old Government pack-saddle one of the boys 
had traded from an Indian for some '^paints/' This little 
mishap occurred in August, and until the end of November 
I forked that pack-saddle, which in the course of an after- 
noon the dexterous Port had supplied with the necessary 
rawhide loops, cinche, and bearings, and two odd-looking 
stirrups of wood. I need not add that it was about the 
hardest, most uncomfortable, and most impiety-engendering 
saddle man ever was astride of. 

preconcert some waj"" of siu^nalling. With us, two shots, fired con- 
secutively as fast as possible (quicker than you would be able to shoot 
when aiming), was a signal that was always to be answered by all 
who heard it. It was only used twice on the whole trip — once by 
Port, and once by myself; but, nevertheless, it is a precaution that, 
in emergencies, can be of very great help 



Our Dttmb Friends in Camp, 99 

But now I must close Boreas's record, for were I to 
give all his adventures they would fill a couple of chapters. 
Near him_, on the glade in front of me, feeds a small, wiry 
mare. On her forehead she has a large white spot, her pro- 
file leans towards the Romau^ and her eyes even in repose 
betray that she's '^ a real mean cayuse." Let me speak of 
the baldfaced Hattie, for that is her name, as tenderly as 
lies in human nature, for, alas ! she is no more, being one 
of last winter's victims. Port got her as a perfectly 
unbroken three-year-old, trading her from a Texas cattle- 
boss, who had just brought her from her wild home. She 
was not even '-rope-broken," i.e. accustomed to the rope- 
halter. To m.anage this " breaking in " without a " corral," 
or fenced-in enclosure, where this is usually performed, 
would have exercised the ingenuity of one less accustomed 
to handle unbroken stock than Port was. She was as wild 
as a fawn, as fierce as a young tiger, and her four legs, 
when one of her kicking tantrums was upon her, exhibited 
the agility of forty ordinary limbs. But all this was sub- 
dued by that pliant young ash to which one fine morning 
we managed to lead her, tying o:.e end of the rawhide 
"lariat," or lasso-rope, to the trunk of the tree about eighfc 
feet from the ground, while the other was fastened round 
her neck. Then casting loose the hawser by which we had 
hauled her up to the tree, we sat down to await the end. 
It presently came : laying her ears well back, and giving a 
few introductory kicks, she dashed off at full speed. The 
lariat was about fifty feet in length, so that there was ample 
space to get up i?peed by the time she got to the end of the 
tether. The tree bent like a bow, but it held, and so did 
the rawhide rope — with the result that the mare " swapped 
ends," i,e, turned a clean summersault^ and was laid flat 

H 2 



lOO Camps in the Rockies, 

on her back with a good deal of force, teaching her a well- 
known cowboy lesson no horse is likely to forget — if ita 
neck stands it. When she regained her legs she seemed 
the most astonished mare you ever saw, and one, too, who 
never again " ran agin a rope/' 

She is the only genuine '' bucker " ^ in tbe outfit, and 
sbe is the only bond fide bucking horse that ever threw 
me, and that for the very good reason that she was the 
only one I ever bestrode. The occurrence of my parting 
company with her happened in the presence of a number 
of Texas cowboys, and the event was hailed with such 
yells of mischievous delight on the part of the bystanders 
as I never shall forget, for your genuine cowboy — a 
masterly rider, born in the saddle — is an unmerciful critio 
of horsemanship. Indeed they are the only human beings, 
I believe, who can sit a horse that bas learnt bucking in 
Texas, and has not been broken of it in his youth. I do 
not exactly know what possessed me to mount the bald- 
faced one that afternoon ; anyhow, I did get on her, while 
two of the fellows held her. As a London omnibus cad 
would say, I was nearly " near side up and off side down.'' 
However, I managed to stick to her during the first pre- 
liminary flourishes with those forty legs of hers, after the 
boys had cast her loose. " She is just a' feeling of you ! '' 
they shouted ; and presently she settled down to business, 
to as fair and square a spell at bucking as ever shook the 
life out of a white man. Not being a Texan, or feeling 
in me the talent of gripping with my knees an animal 
bow, I was shot off at the fourth or fifth buck, delivered, 

^ Bucking is, I believe, an endemic vice of Texas — a circumstance 
easily exjjlicable by the peculiarities of management, no less than of 

Burroui!din<?s. 



Ottr Dtimb Friends in Camp. loi 

as is the wont of a genuinely '' mean one/^ with lightning- 
like rapidity. The movement of the animal consists of 
lowering the head between the front legs, and suddenly 
arching the back_, all the muscles of which act as so many 
bowstrings, the whole thing being accompanied by a leap 
into the air^ and coming down on all four legs stiffened 
out as were they pokers. 

A few stray buckS; with intervals between each, are easy 
enough to weather ; it is the continuance and the amazing 
rapidity that accomplish the rout of riders not trained to 
such horses from youth. The first buck, lifting you perhaps 
only a couple of inches from the pigskin, shakes you ; the 
second, following so quickly as hardly to leave you time to 
ascertain that the first is over, puzzles you; the third 
makes you lose your balance ; the fourth pitches and tosses 
you ; and the fifth accomplishes the brute's design, namely, 
dumping you off. My performance —to revert to a sore 
subject — was greeted with endless laughter and loud 
shouts, *'Stay with her, boss ; stay with her.'"' And when 
finally I left her, ^' I landed," as the boys said, "kinder 
squarely /' '^ I hurt the ground,''' " I was rough on the 
bunch grass,^' '^ I tried to make a hole in the earth,'-* and 
other suchlike humorous expressions greeting my ears 
when I could again hear, for the violence of my fall had 
very nearly shaken out of me the few little senses I had 
left. The next minute there was recorded in my neigh- 
bourhood a solemn vow, that has not been broken since, 
and I doubt if that same person will ever share the fate 
set forth on a wooden cross at the head of a lonely 
Western grave, of 

« William Jake Hall, 
Got I buck and a fall ; 



I02 ' Camps in the Rockies* 

Killed dead as a Slug, 
By a Texas Plug. 
Born in Georgy, 
*48 Anne Domini." 

Breaking a horse of bucking is, as a profession, about 
one of the most riskful ones that exist, and few pro- 
fessionals attain mature age. The wages are very high, 
and only quite young men are able to withstand the 
terrible shaking, few of them being able to continue 
longer than a few months at a time. The first organs to 
suffer are the lungs, spitting of blood being, as I am told, 
the invariable result of this vocation. There are two ways, 
I understand, of fitting a bucking horse ; tersely rendered, 
the one is to '' follow the buck," the other to '' receive 
the buck."" Both have warm adherents, though I cer- 
tainly met more " followers^' than "receivers,'^ a circum- 
stance I can perfectly understand, for the strain upon the 
rider^'s body of the latter process must be terrific. 

My first acquaintance v/ith the wayward temper of the 
baldfaced one was made three years ago in a steep can- 
yon, the very precipitous slopes of which left hardly room for 
a two or three feet trail to pass up its long course. E-ight 
in the middle of it^ on about the worst spot, something 
suddenly went wrong with her, the precise nature of which 
we never had a chance of discovering. It was enough, 
however, to make her "light into bucking." The first thing 
I saw was a two-pound tobacco canister, followed by my 
tooth-brush and sponge-bag, describing a graceful parabola 
down the dizzy depth of the gorge — for unfortunately my 
" hold-all," carelessly fastened, was part of the bald-faced 
one's load — where they of course were lost to me. Buck 
followed buck, the vixen very highly enjoying the fun, 



Our Dumb Friends in Camp. 103 

vastly increased by the security of her position. I^either 
of the men at the head or at the end of the long file of 
horses could approach her on account of the narrowness of 
the trail ; till finally Port, by wriggling past the legs of 
the horses ahead, did manage at considerable risk to ap- 
proach her. It was high time ; a few more bucks, and 
the rest of my " duds '''' would have followed the canister. 
Fortunately I had a spare tooth-brush, otherwise this 
disaster might have been of overwhelming consequences. 

To our other friends I cannot devote as much space. 
There, near the vixenish Hattie, stands Kate, a good- 
natured, old- maidenish mare, exhibiting, when "bar'' are 
about, not unreasonable nervousness, for she has a " game '^ 
leg. She demonstrated to me once how great things can 
come of little beginnings. With her lame leg she started 
a stone, which rolled down a slope, the stone started a 
grizzly, the grizzly started a very formidable growl, the 
growl started Boreas, and Boreas not only started himself, 
but the whole band of horses, causing a disastrous stam- 
pede. Kate is full of character ; she does not like to be 
petted, and resents kindly pats with lightHing-like kicks, 
delivered with unerring aim. 

Close to her, under the far-reaching sweep of a pine, 
stand the two clowns of the party, " Bigbelly " and '^All- 
eat," both horses of mature age and mature humour, but 
most lively temperaments. No trail is too wide that they 
do not manage to find a handy tree against which to 
" snag " their packs, no stream too shallow for them to 
tumble down and duck their loads, no meadow bottom so 
dry that they cannot find mire-holes in which to get 
*^ stalled/^ no descending slope too gentle to offer them wel- 
come opportunity to reach the bottom " ended over," as 



I04 Camps ht the Rockies. 

Western vernacular typifies a state of general head-over- 
heelishness ; no ascent so gradual that their pack-saddles 
cannot be wriggled back^ giving them the necessary excuse 
for a headlong stampede into the densest brush or timber 
they can find ; and finally, no chance is ever lost by either 
to indulge in a five minutes' spell at '' bucking." There 
they stand, in looks meek and submissive, the head of 
one close to the tail of the other — an arrangement more 
ingenious than you would think at the first glance, for it 
enables them to whisk the troublesome flies ofi" each other's 
heads. 

There, not far from "Old John," another victim of 
last winter, stand the Sorrel Mare and the Bay Mare, as a 
rule patient, good-natured brutes, though neither can bear 
matters going wrong with their packs. Farther ofi" are 
*'Whitie," an Indian ponj^ who can buck, and the "Bessie 
Mare " who can not^ but who is a remarkably fast half-bred 
— American cross-bred with Texan — animal, who, hence, 
comes in for all the quick work. Poor thing! she too fell 
victim to the severity of that unprecedented winter. The 
remaining thcee or four horses, being possessed of no 
special characteristics, I shall leave to oblivion. 

I cannot close this chapter on dumb friends without 
some short notice of dumb foes in camp. Conspicuous 
among them are two much -abused pests of the upland 
plains of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, i.e. rattle- 
snakes and skunks. The former have given their name to 
a considerable range of high hills in Central Wyoming ; 
but these Rattlesnake Mountains, across which I passed 
on this as well as on a previous occasion, hardly deserve 
their notoriety, for there are other portions of the West 
far more deserving the name. Once I was camped 



Our Dumb Friends in Camp, 105 

for many weeks among tliese hills, and saw not more 
than about a dozen ratfclers, all told. They are in 
reality, notwithstanding their fatal fangs, as it is needless 
to tell those who know them from personal experience, 
very harmless beasts, when once you know their manner 
of attack and the sound of the rattle that always pre- 
cedes their '^ striking/' as the act of precipitating is called. 
It is a noise not at all like what you expect it to be. I 
had never heard it in my life before visiting these hills, 
and it was only owing to this circumstance that I had a 
sufficiently narrow escape. For the warning of others I 
may relate it, though there is nothing in the least sen- 
sational about it, but on the contrary a good deal of the 
ludicrous. I was out after some Bighorn, and by hand-over- 
hand climbing had ascended an excessively steep '' knife- 
back '^ cliff of moderate height. The top, of amazing 
sharpness, whence I hoped to get a good look at the slope 
on the other side of the ridge, was as jagged as a saw, 
offering a good chance to peep over without yourself being 
seen. I had gained one of these craggy indentures by 
wriggling up to it in serpent fashion. Yery intent upon 
sport, 1 had raised my head to peep over, when close to my 
right ear I heard a peculiar sound. For the first second I 
paid no attention to it, but eagerly scanned the precipitous 
slope on the other side. Something, I don't know exactly 
what, made me turn my head ; and there, on a level with 
my face, not fifteen inches off lay coiled on a protruding 
slab of rock a moderate-sized snake, her head raised, and 
" foiked lightning ^' playing.^ I did not know it was a 

* The rattlesnake {Croialine Ana) prefers arid wastes. It has 
recently been found that this animal can do almost entirely without 
water. Mr. Stradllng writes of it : — " During eleven months that I 



io6 Camps in the Rockies, 

rattlesnake; nor was I aware that the position, with the 
head raised high and curved back, is the one to be dreaded 
most, inasmuch as it immediately precedes the " striking.*' 

The beast, however, looked so venomous that instinctively 
I instantly ducked my head, and threw myself to one side ; 
and the snake, who at that moment struck, of course 
overshot the mark. My movement was, however, so 
violent and unpremeditated that I lost my foothold, and 
not being able to regain it I rolled down the entire cliff. 
It is decidedly nicer to write about than to undergo such a 
roll, for the height, some forty or fifty yards, was sufficient 
to land me at the bottom a sorely bruised being, '^ feeling 
funny bones all over." The rifle, which was cocked, had 
fared much, better, for somehow on such occasions the 
thought instantly flashes across one^s mind that much, 
more depends upon keeping whole your rifle than j^our 
skin. Mischief to the latter can be remedied, and in the 
wondrously invigorating Western air, sores and wounds of 
every kind heal remarkably quickly ; but damage to your 
trusty friend, if at all of a serious nature, means ruin. 

I well remember how among the " boys " I once raised 
a great laugh, a laugh whose mocking intensity is still 
ringing in my ears, by this very instinctive carefulness. 
"We were going through some very broken country, and 
were ascending a precipitous slope, by a game trail that 
went zigzag up its face. Port, with four or five of the 
horses, was ahead, I being in the centre, leading "Boreas,^' 
or rather, I walking ahead and he following me, while 

have had a rattlesnake under close observation, it has shed its cuticle 
four times ; has eaten fifty or sixty large rats .... is now four feet 
eight inches long ; hut during the whole time it has never drunk watef 
nor bathed.*' 



Our Dumb Friends in Camp, 107 

close up behind us came the rest of the 'horses and men. 
Those in front were just getting out of my sight, when 
suddenly I heard a shout ahead, and looking up saw 
^' Ealdfaced Hattie '' charging down the narrow trail 
as fast as she could come ; both her side packs, con- 
taining pots and pans, were off, and dragging behind 
her. Down she came, snorting with terror at the jingle 
and rattle of the pans. If ever I saw a '' stampeded 
mare with a teakettle tied to her tail '^ it was the terror- 
stricken baldfaced one. A collision was inevitable, for 
the trail was not broader than a couple of feet or so, 
having on the one side a declivity which was almost a 
precipice, on the other an overhanging bank some four 
or five feet in height, merging into a very steep upward 
slope, on which stood, four or five yards higher up, a 
weatherbeaten cedar, which notwithstanding the steep angle 
had managed to strike root. One thing or the other had 
to be done, and that quickly, for when I saw the mare she 
was not more than ten yards off. I decided for the upward 
slope ; and as I happened to have my rifle in my hand, 
where it hampered me least, my, as I suppose very frantic- 
looking leap up the bank, was successful ; another hop and 
a stride and I had reached the tree. But just as I was 
about to turn round in order to witness the collision 
between Boreas and Hattie, I felt the soft clay-like 
ground give way under my feet, and I had the sensation 
of slipping back. A frantic clutch I made for the tree 
was too late ; I broke my nails, but could not stay my 
backsliding. Next I dug the stock of my rifle deep into 
the soft soil ; it stopped me for a tenth of a second, but no 
more, for the whole bank seemed to be sliding under my 
feet. At that moment the safety of my faithful arm flashed 



io8 Camps in the Rockies. 

across my mind, and feeling it securely imbedded in the soil, 
I relinquislied my grip on it^ and leaving it standing there 
upright as a sentinel, I went back and back, and finally 
over the bank, landing on my back right between the 
forefeet of the two collided horses. How I got out 
between the plunging and reariag beasts with whole 
bones I know not ; I did, however, and was greeted by 
a never-ending roar of facetious Western laughter. My 
leap up the bank was declared to be the biggest thing 
they had ever laid eyes on, " doggarned well worth while 
crossing the staked plains to see.'^ While other questions 
purporting kind inquiries '' why I had not stayed with 
the rifle ? '"^ whether 1 " was scared at the tree ? '' or 
whether I " thought the mare would eat me ? '^ were put 
to me by the two most uproarious of my audience, a 
couple of starved cowboys we had accidentall}^ met, and 
who for several days previously had drunk of my coffee 
and eaten my bread — the latter, however, not of my baking, 
for then I should have excused them as madmen. The 
"boss's thtmdering big jump'' remained a favourite joke 
for several days. 

Of skunks — an animal in shape like a big polecat, 
with a very bushy tail — a multitude of amusing stories 
could be told, for the Plainsman is generally brimful 
of tales of the *' Essence pedlar ;" and all the ingenuity 
of Western humour is expended upon the building up 
of *' good stories,'^ that often bid fair to outrival the 
notorious bear stories, not only in the way of facts but 
also in humorousness. Leaving them to the frontiersman 
to tell — for nobody narrates them better — I desire to advert 
to a more serious matter, namely, the wide-spread belief 
in the West that the bite of the skunk produces hydro- 



Our Dumb Friends in Camp, 109 

phobia, and hence is usually attended by fatal results, an 
exaggeration of certain facts which is apt to inflict very 
needlessly deadly terror upon persons who have had the 
mischance of being bitten by one of these pestiferous little 
brutes.^ 

Nobody who has ever watched a skunk is likely to forget 
the peculiar minciag step and leisurely zigzag course by 
which he retreats, till finally, when attacked, suddenly 
asserting himself, and raising the hinder parts, with the 
tail elevated over the back so that the long silken hair 
heretofore trailing in one direction falls in a tuft on all 
sides, the sense of smell immediately indicates the 
flagrant fragrance. According to Audubon, the skunk 
can squirt his terrible scent a distance of fourteen feet; 
and though the animal is very particular not to soil his 
own pelt, he generally is the very first to retreat, if retreat 
is possible. 

Lacking the chief qualities of other Mustelidae — the 
sagacity and prowess of the wolverine, the scansorial 
ability of the marten, the agility of the weasel, the 
aqueous accomplishments of the otter, and the fossorial 
capacity of the badger, its nearest relation — ^it is evident 
that the tardy skunk, of little strength and spirit, had 
to be distinguished by additional means of self-defence. 

' Of this I am able to spealc from experience, having on my first 
trip to the Rocky Mountains been bitten by a skunk, and having had 
for more than a year the ever-present dread of possible inoculation of 
that most horrible of diseases, hydrophobia, hanging over me. It is 
entirely owing to this circumstance that I have since taken pains to 
collect authentic information, and also to examine all available scientific 
records on rabies generally — the results of which I have endeavoured 
to embody in a few pages in the Appendix, as being a subject, I fancy, 
which can interest but those about to visit the West. 



110 Camps in the Rockies. 

That his wonderful audacity and confidence in the terrible 
weapon, of which he makes use with startling assurance 
and accuracy, is not misplaced, is proved by the large 
number of skunks in certain districts. 

Skunks are, as is well known, by no means shy animals. 
They are generally about at night, and will enter human 
habitations with surprising temerity. An old prospector, 
^'French Louy," whom I met in the Rattlesnake Hills, 
a great place for skunks, had a pet one who used to 
sleep in the bunk at his feet very nearly every night. 
The cabin was so strongly scented that we smelt it a little 
distance off; indeed, as it was night, and none of us had 
ever been to the place, we were guided to it by the per- 
fume, for we had already heard of this strangest of pets. 
The old fellow, a great character in his way, was rather 
hurt at our objections to the scent. " He no stink ; he 
smell just sufficement to know he is dar '," and when I 
informed him that I quite believed it, he rejoined with 
his favourite oath, '' Soup de Bouillon Almightee ! why-for 
do you come here ifj^ouare so par-tic-u-laire?" 

As a warning to those unacquainted with the West, 
I may mention, that skunks evince a special predilection 
for bacon. Indeed, I am convinced I have to ascribe 
the bite to which I have already alluded to this 
circumstance. My hands having been blistered by 
the dry heat and by a very hard-mouthed brute of a 
horse, I had, failing, all other species of grease, applied 
some bacon fat to the sore places, drawing on a pair of 
gloves before turning in under my robe. One of the 
skunks had evidently winded the enticing scent of the 
bacon ; and finding one of my hands, covered by a 
glove, outside the robe, had given it a hearty nip. 



Our Dumb Friends in Camp, 1 1 1 

Long" before I was fully aroused^ and had whipped out 
my six-shooter from under my saddle-pillow, the enemy 
had scuttled oif, his vanishing form dimly visible in 
the moonlight semi-darkness. The previous night three 
skunks had walked off with a good-sized piece of bacon, 
which had been left lying in a dish on the ground. 

Many people have a great terror of skunks, a fear in^ 
stilled into them by tall stories. I once travelled with 
such a personage, a countryman, who had been stuffed 
up with Western tales ; and our camp, as long as we 
were in the skunk regions, was nightly the scene of reck- 
less revolver practice and bad language. His shots at the 
vanishing enemy, fired a few feet from my ear, now and 
again woke me (I am a very sound sleeper), but of 
course always too late to prevent the invariable result — 
an answering discharge, far more terrible and fatal than 
my friend^s nervous aim. If the skunk is not alarmed or 
frightened off, he will presently wander away, a compara- 
tively very faint perfume being all that he leaves behind 
him — for lie only fires as a means of self-defence. 



112 Camps in the Rockies. 



CHAPTER y. 

CAMPS AMONG WAPITI. 

Our great hunger — Appeasing it by four bulls — Their stalk — Early 
snow-storm — My great head — His home and his death— Stag-lore 
— My first Wapiti — My young guide and his family — Male and 
female market hunters — A natural game park — Unsophisticated 
game — Moonlight stalking. 

In a previous chapter reference was made to a hungry 
sixteen days, eventually brought to a pleasant termination 
by a successful Wapiti hunt.^ Let me introduce this 
chapter on sport with an account of that memorable stalk — 
for memorable I must call it, to do justice to certain ante- 
cedent features. Camped on a delightful glade in the last 
belt of timber, where we had ineffectually sought refuge 
from mosquitoes, and where our worn-out horses could 
recruit on the best of mountain grasses, the morning of 
the 13th of August was just dawning, when our camp-fire 
burst into brilliant flames, shedding round it a circle of 
grateful warmth, of which four shivering, hungry human 
beings, with strangely disfigured faces (one of my eyes, 
fortunately my left one, was entirely closed by a bite or 

* Wapiti are called elk out West ; and the stag is spoken of as a 
**buU" — both anti-phraseological instances. 



Camps among Wapiti, 113 

sting more than commonly poisonous) are not slow to 
take advantage. I am probably the warmest of tbe lot, for 
I have just returned from an invigorating, though, very 
brief, dip in a beaver pool close by, over which the frost 
during the night has cast a film of ice. A rub down 
with a rough towel has brought out a glorious glow, but 
alas ! has also roused to outrageous keenness that old 
man hunger of which I have already so bitterly com- 
plained. Hands are rubbed very vigorously ; and in 
Government terms the men stigmatize the depravity of 
that '' doggarned water in the camp bucket, friz up like 
a Mormon^s tongue when you ask him how many wives 
he's got.'^ At last the coffee is steaming in our cups, and 
a huge pile of bread, the result of three bakings, is heaped 
on the waterproof -sheet— our ordinary table-cloth — spread 
on the sward as near as possible to the fire. We have 
'* put ourselves outside " of that pile, and four cups of coffee 
each, long before the sun has topped the " sawback '' 
ridge overhead. Having settled each man''s rayon for tho 
day^s sport, we are off in good time. We all mean business, 
you bet ; and there won^t be any cai^eless shooting, you 
can stake 3'our hair on that. Henry, with his huge smooth- 
bore double-barrelled gun — stock, locks, and barrels held 
together by cunning rawhide fastenings, is to take the 
lowest level, wliere there is thick covert and a chance 
of Muledeer. Port with his Winchester, and Edd with 
his Sharp rifle, take the right ; while to my choice falls the 
left slope of the great chain on which, close to Timberline, 
we are camped. 

I am in light climbing order — a flannel blouse- shirt, 
my cartridge-belt and field-glasses round my waist 
and shoulders, a chunk of bread of yesterday's baking, 

I 



114 Camps in the Rockies, 

a favourite author in cheap waistcoat-pocket edition, and 
a pair of moccasins in my '^ riicksack/^ ^ complete my 
usual outfit when hunting on foot. The rocks overhead 
are of wonderfully bizarre formation. Partly of volcanic 
origin, they are piled over each other in the most grotesque 
and Titanic disorder imaginable. There are great pillars 
500 feet high, at their base considerably smaller than 
further up. Some of the cliffs look like the battlemented 
walls of a Norman keep, sorely battered by time. Over all 
rise the tops of two peaks, the highest in this district, 
quite 3000 feet above my standpoint. 

The air is marvellously light, but as it is my first day 
this season in high altitudes, the exceedingly rarefied 
atmosphere tells, after a couple of hours' climb, upon my 
strides ; I stop oftener — to admire the view, and my pipe 
requires more care than does commonly that inseparable 
companion. The field-glasses are constantly in use, but 
not a sign of living being can I descry. In another hour's 
ramble I have reached the first patches of last winter's 
snow, firm 72eve-lik.e masses that fill the steep ravines. 
Yonder is a great projecting rock, from which I hope to 
get a good view of the whole slope. And half an hour 
later, by dint of some hand-over-hand and knee-over-knee 
climbing, I have reached my place of outlook. Of the 
view that burst on my eyes, splendid in its vastness, I will 
not speak. The crag, quite detached from the main 
mass of mountains, flacks on one side a pass like de- 
pression in the great chain, while on the other three 
sides it falls off in stupendous precipices. A large snow- 

2 A canvas gauvae-hag, carried by two straps, not unlike a knap- 
sack ; its weight bearing more on the small of the back. It is a most 
useful article ; when empty it can be stuffed into your pocket, while it 
will hold a buck chamois or roedeer. See Appendix. 



Camps among Wapiti, 115 

field, painfully glittering in the brilliant sun, ©overs tho 
pass^ but as I fancy it is an unlikely place for game^ I 
confine my scrutiny to the rocky slopes that stretch away 
on both sides of me for many miles. The heat and still- 
ness is oppressive, for even the breeze has died away — an 
unusual circumstance in the morning— while the sky has 
assumed a peculiar purple tinge. Hours pass, as, stretched 
out in a comfortable sprawling attitude on the top, just 
sufficiently large to permit me occupying this spread-eagle 
pose, I keep scanning the cliffs for Bighorn, the only game 
I expect to find at this great altitude. "When my eyes get 
tired of peering through the powerful glasses, my book 
comes in very handily. For more than an hour I have 
not turned my head in the direction of the snow-field at 
my back. What is therefore my astonishment when, on 
happening to wriggle round so as to see down to the snow, 
I perceive quite a band of animals on it. " Bighorn, by 
Jove V^ I exclaim. " But no ; by all that's green they are 
Wapiti/' for I can plainly see the antlers. The pipe is 
consigned to the pocket, the little volume returns to the 
riicksack, and my heavy stalking-boots are replaced by 
the noiseless moccasins. 

The distance is about half or three quarters of a mile, 
air-line ; but 1 have to take a great round; and the slope 
up which I have to run is steep, and the air rarefied to a 
trying extent. Fortunately no extra clothing handicaps 
my movements ; and, as a Westerner once remarked after 
watching me — from a safe place — making the best of time 
towards a handy tree with a crippled bear after me, I 
am ^^ all legs, with elbows for handles." On reaching the 
lower extremity of the snowfield, where a rivulet, formed 
by the melting of the snow, has worn a great cavern iu 

I 2 



1 1 6 Camps in the Rockies, 

the neve, I come to a halt. '^ If they have stopped for 
an hour^ they will wait another ten minutes/' I think — 
and there is too much at stake to risk mischance. So I 
pause for a moment, to regain my wind, and bathe my 
temple and wrists with the refreshingly cool ice- water. 
A singular change has come over the sky, where great 
banks of most threatening-looking clouds — the first I have 
seen for many weeks — have appeared. The wind, too, 
which out West is so singularly steady, has sprung up, 
but from the wrong quarter, and presently it begins to 
blow big guns. No time is to be lost. So, with a final 
look at my rifle, I begin a tedious stalk up the snow. 
Fortunately, a recent landslip from the crag I occupied 
has sent numerous fragments of rock down the slope, where 
they lie deeply imbedded in the drift, thus affording me 
some little cover. That most momentous question, whether 
the stags are still there, is filling me with anxiety, for since 
leaving the rock I have had no opportunity to see the 
upper extremity of the neve where they were, but have 
worked my way solely by certain landmarks. Now I must 
be close to them ; and a boulder larger than the rest, pro- 
truding two feet over the snow, is as good a place as any 
for a cautious survey of the ground. Slowly, very slowly, 
I raise my head over the stone, and presently catch sight 
of the tips of a pair of antlers, moving to-and-fro, 
apparently not more than five-and- thirty yards off. Glo- 
rious view ! But how unsteady my hands have suddenly 
got ; and what uncommon vigour is manifested by my 
heart, as if I had not previously seen thousands of the 
noble game? But it is that venomous old hunger which 
has wrecked my nerves, making them a prey to my 
un sportsman -like thoughts of steaming pots ^hat float with 



Camps among Wapiti. 117 

fairy like vrakemhlmwe before my eyes ; proving, to use 
the words of an American^ to whom I afterwards related 
the episode, ** how quickly the optical waves were pro- 
pelled inward to the seat of hungry war, to return to the 
protoplasm of intellect freighted with rejuvenating culinary 
dreams ! ^' Turning on my back, I take from my belt a 
dozen or so of cartridges, which, after blowing the snow 
off, are placed in my stalking cap, on the stone in front of 
me. With the rifle to my shoulder, I raise myself slowly 
to a standing position — the only one enabling me to see 
the animals. With eager eyes I scan the ground. There 
they are, fifteen or twenty lordly Wapiti, mostly bulls, 
standing and lying about, some feeding on the sparse 
blades on the border of the snowfield, others couched 
in a state of repose on the cooling snow. 

Though so close, none but a hind has seen the strange 
apparition ; so while she is staring stupidly at me, 1 have 
an instant's respite to pick out good heads. One big old 
bull, about forty yards off, gets the first greeting. Need 
I say that, all the aiming I have in me, is put into that 
shot ? The second barrel is turned on another a few yards 
further off. W hile the former has fallen in his tracks, 
the latter receives the fire without making a single sign 
that he is hit ; but I am pretty confident of my shot ; so 
after reloading, which I do without taking my ej^es off 
the herd, who now, after the first moment-'s spell-bound 
terror, are in the act of making off, fire is opened on a 
third and fourth victim. Both are hit, but very indiffer- 
ently, and they continue their flight : four or five shots 
more have to be expended before they are my meat. All 
this time the second stag is standing there, erect, and 
ap])arently unhurt. He has a very fine head ; so, aftel 



I T 8 Camps in the Rockies, 

slipping fresh, cartridges in, I keep him covered. Presently 
a slight swaying motion can be noticed ; and through the 
huge body of the noble beast there passes a convulsive 
shudder. His front legs refuse to carry him, and he 
slowly sinks on his knees ; the next instant his head 
droops, and he rolls over — a dead Wapiti.^ The altitude 
of the spot, not a foot under 11,000 feet— and probably 
nearer 12,000 feet^is an uncommon one for Wapiti ; 
but more extraordinary is the fact, that, while two of 
the stags I killed have their antlers perfectly cleaned, the 
other two are in as perfect a state of velvet, without the 
slightest sign of rubs on their fur-like covering. Well, 
there they lie, the four slain ones, and you will not be 
surprised to hear that my inner man goes forth, and 
greets them right gladly, for I fancy my sensations re- 
semble those, — of course altogether on a lower level — • 
which moved the spirit of the ^^ cowboy,'^ who, after a 
long parting, saw his girl — for I feel ^^ like Pd reach out 
and gather her in.'^ 

The circumstance of their different heads was, how- 
ever, so curious that, before entering upon my gralloching 
duties I spent half an hour in a successful search for a 
clue.'* I was prompted to do this before anything else, by 
the very threatening look of the sk}^ ; and I had not 
got through brittling the first stag, when the snowstorm 
was upon me. Considering the very early season of the 
year, the intensity of the storm was somewhat surprising 
to me ; and I bitterly rued the valuable half-hour I had, 
as I then thought, wasted in my search. 

The storm commenced with a slushy hail, drenching me 
to the skin in the first three or four minutes, which presently, 
3 See Appendix : Wapiti. * Ibid. 



Camps among Wapiti, . 119 

influenced by the intensely cold wind, turned into regular 
snow. I persevered;, however, and accomplished the most 
essential portion of my butcher's work, so that at least 
the meat should not spoil ; and a portion of the fat, which 
to us was invaluable, was secured. More I failed to 
accoraplish_, for my fingers refused to hold the knife, 
which danced about as had I been stricken by the worst 
form of palsy, while my teeth kept up a lively chattering. 
Not often have I felt \\iq intensity of cold as on that 
August day. Fortunatel}^ I had begun on the first stag 
by cutting out the tender loin ; and with two tongues, 
all safely stowed away in ray riicksack, I was soon 
making good time down the slope. My sole flannel 
upper garment, frozen stiff, had turned into icy armour, 
crinkling at every movement. On reaching camp 
I found things in a decidedly uncomfortable condi- 
tion, for not expecting such an early snowstorm, we 
had left everything strewn about on the ground; and 
what we had not left open, the hurricane-like wind 
which preceded the snow had scattered. The onl}^ dry 
thing was the tent, and that, as usual, was securely 
rolled up and stowed away in its proper waterproof 
canvas sack, for hitherto we had never once used it. 
At first nothing could be found under the snow, and 
the whisky keg, last of all ; for I need not say, that 
under the circumstances the cask was the first thing I 
looked for. At last I discovered it under a heap of drifted 
snow, and nearly knocked my front teeth down my throat 
in my attempt to bring the cup to my lips. Yery shortly 
after my arrival. Port and Edd, the former's beard a mass 
of icicles, turned up. They were quite as miserable- 
looking as I was; but their faces became wreathed 



1 20 Camps in the Rockies, 

with sunny smiles when they heard that meat — glorious 
meat ! was in camp. My discovery of the whisky-keg 
benefitted also them, and with lighter hearts we began 
to set things straight. When, after some search, we found 
some dry wood, all our hands refused to hold the match, 
to light it. Teeth had to do duty; and, aided by 
the wonderfully developed trapper's knack of making a 
fire under the most unfavourable circumstances, we had 
a roaring blaze shortly afterwards. The snowstorm had 
vanished as rapidly as it had appeared ; so that when 
after an hour^s work, we finally sat down to dinner, the 
sun was shining brightly. I need not say that the meal 
was a remarkably square one, with two very eager and 
hungry-looking dogs, quite forgetful of their usual good 
manners, sitting by us and staring us hard in the face. 
One verj^ delightful result of the storm was that it 
cleared oJff all mosquitoes ; for that year we had seen the 
last of them. Henry, who had lost his way in a dense 
forest at the foot of the mountain we were on, turned up 
only the next morning. Strange to say, he had seen 
nothing of the snowstorm ; and while we had been suffer- 
ing intense cold, he had to complain of heat, the dif- 
ference of altitude being hardly over 4000 feet. As he 
reached camp early, we had plenty of time left to bring 
the meat and heads into camp before night. We managed 
to get two of our steadiest pack-horses a good way up the 
steep slopes, to a point not more than half a mile from 
the snowfield, and left them there securely picketted. 
In two loads to each man, we took down to the horses as 
much meat as the}^ could carry, two sets of antlers, and 
about fifty pounds of fat, or so-called ^' elk-tallow,'* 
besides a goodly load for each human back. The stags 



Camps among Wapiti, 121 

were in splendid condition ; but we had some trouble in 
cutting up the carcasses, for they were frozen hard, and 
we had either to cut the meat out in shapeless chunks 
with the timber-axe and knife, or saw it in strips with 
my powerful antler-saw. 

Never was venison more welcome, and never did savages 
" eat with a more coming appetite,^^ for, as Port said, it 
kept on ** coming" till the relays of frying-pans were 
empty. The "Four-bull camp hunger" soon became a 
standard measure in our little trapper republic, and it was 
one of the camps that we loved to talk about in times of 
"famine and pestilence." 

Game of the larger species, to be seen to full advantage 
ought to be watched in their proper home ; and though 
some of the deer species, such as the barren-ground cariboo, 
and the reindeer, afford exceptions to the rule that the stag 
is the child of forests, the Wapiti decidedly does not. 
Nowhere but in forest landscape can the glorious propor- 
tions of this great deer be fully appreciated. To run 
Wapiti on horseback, as now and again at one season of 
the year the sportsman has a chance to do on the upland 
Plains, puts him on a par with a quarry that occupies 
a far lower rank in the scale of game worthy of real 
sportsmanlike ardour, viz. the bison, or buffalo. And 
though I have done so on one or two occasions myself, 
and have keenly enjoyed the run, I am by no means proud 
of my performance. 

I know of few more inspiring sights than a in\Q stag in 
his true home, the beautiful Alpine retreats high up on 
certain of the great ranges of the Rocky Mountains. 
Scenery, grand as it may be, receives fresh charm when 
framed in by a noble pair of branching antlers ; and I 



122 Camps in the Rockies, 

know no trophy of days spent in the far-off wilds that will 
recall stirring memories in more lifelike and warmei 
colours, or fill your soul with such longing desire to return 
speedily to the well-known glade in the forest, where in a 
fair struggle the bearer of yonder head found in you his 
master. 

As I write these lines, which I happen to do in a quiet 
old Tyrolese " schloss,^' the arched corridors of which are 
lined with trophies of the chase in the Old and New World, 
the shadow of such a great head is thrown across my table, 
for the low winter's sun is casting its last rays through the 
quaint old diamond-paned and marble -arched window at 
my back. It is my largest head. The skill of the taxi- 
dermist has not been uselessly expended upon this cherished 
souvenir of the E-ockies, and the grand old fellow looks 
down with a very lifelike calmness of mien from the broad 
expanse of the tapestried wall reserved to him, where in 
stately exclusiveness he has found his last home. 

Twelve months ago the great stag was roaming seven or 
eight thousand miles away, through the dense forests and 
across the timber-girt barriers of the main backbone of the 
North American "divide.'* At the break of day he 
bathed in the clear waters of one or the other of its hundreds 
of nameless, never-visited lakelets : in the morning he 
drank of water that flowed into the Atlantic, while his 
evening draught deprived the Pacific Ocean of some drops 
rightfully belonging to it; for his home was on the great 
watershed of the Continent. 

Here one beautiful, breezy, October morning he and I 
met ; but hunter and hunted were both equally unprepared 
for each other's presence. With my rifle at my side I was 
lying on a prominent knoll, examining with my glasses a 



Camps among Wapiti, 123 

band of his species grazing on a broad glade somewhfit lower 
than my position, and about tliree or four hundred yards off. 
There was "nothing worth killing among the lot^ though 
there was many a portly old stag stalking over the barren, 
for it was "whistling time/^ as the rutting season is called," 
when the old males join the smaller fry — a sight which, 
though it no longer stirs my pulse, is yet one I always 
love to watch. I had done so scores of times in different 
parts of the West ; this year on the grassy highlands shut 
in by maiwaises ierres peaks, of weird shape and weirder 
colouring, in some of the more central portions of 
Wyoming ; the next season on the frontier of Montana, 
where the forestless Sierra Soshone rises from the undu- 
lating Bighorn basin. The proud stag, filled with the 
dominant instincts of the season — love and war — exhibits 
at this time the full virile vigour of his prime. His neck 
swells, and he steps with a consciousness of power which 
at other seasons is replaced by a less noble, timid cautious- 
ness. 

Well, I had scanned every one of the two or three hun- 
dred animals disporting themselves with a pleasant con- 
sciousness of security in the utter seclusion of their retreat, 
for probably none of them had ever before set eyes on a 
human being, when I heard a slight, rustling noise behind 
me. I was above actual Timberline, and only dwarfed 
cedars and some tall bushes were about me. I turned my 

^ The term is derived from the peculiar sound emitted by the stag 
at rutting time. It is very hard to imitate, or to describe. It ia 
neither a whistle nor a bellow. Not unlike some tones produced by an 
iEolian harp, it might also be compared to the higher notes pro- 
duced by the flageolet, aud of course is entirely different from the red 
deer's call. 



124 Camps in thi Rockies. 

head — and there, not ten yards off, just issuing from the 
cover, stood the biggest Wapiti I had ever seen. His neck 
was nearly blacky the rest of the body a grizzly grey- 
brown, and the antlers of truly gigantic size, "We looked 
at each other for a second ; then, still keeping my eyes 
riveted on his, my hand was slowly, very slowly, extended, 
to where, a foot or two off, my rifle was lying, for a quick 
movement is in like cases a fatal policy. But what had 
succeeded numbers of times with other quarry, more wary 
even than the Wapiti, failed in this instance. Something 
or other, perhaps a nervous twitching of mj^ face or other 
involuntary motion, alarmed the stag, and long before I 
had the rifle up to my shoulder, he had turned and put 
the dense undergrowth between him and me. 

To say that there was gnashing of teeth and scalding 
hovart-burning would faintly describe the intensit}^ of my 
disgust. The whole thing was the work of a second ; but 
on my eyes, trained to speedy impression, was photographed 
the number of tines and the extraordinarily heavy beam of 
the antlers, outmatching everything I had killed or seen up 
to then. What was most singular about him was, that he 
came up without once whistling — a very unusual thing for 
a Wapiti to do at the height of the rutting season. The 
reader, if he be a sportsman — and no other is likely to follow 
me through this chapter — can fancy that the apparition had 
awakened in me all the bad passions of the craft, and I 
determined to bag him, if it were at all possible. As the 
sequel will show, it was destined to be a stern chase. 

The first thing to do under the circumstances was to 
ascertain whether the stag was seriously alarmed, in which 
case pursuit would have been next to hopeless, or whether 
he was only momentarily scared, and also to discover the 



Camps among Wapiti. 125 

direction lie had taken. I had been camped a day or two in 
the vicinity^ and knew the general character of the ground 
for several miles round. I was also aware that the emi* 
nence on which I stood was encircled at the base, on every 
side, by a belt of perfectly barren ground. Waiting a 
minute or two as patiently as I could, to let the stag get 
far enough off not to hear me, I proceeded at a trot to the 
bare top of the knoll, about 200 feet above me. A minute 
or two after getting there, I perceived the stag debouch 
from the forest below me, and cross the said open ground. 
He did so very leisurely, so I judged he was not really 
alarmed. The distance was great — some six or seven hun- 
dred yards at the very least ; but so eager was I to get him, 
that had he halted I am afraid I would have succumbed 
to the temptation of chancing a shot — under the circum- 
stances, about the most foolish thing to do. Fortunately, 
however, he kept on his even, though slow, trot, and in 
half a minute or so had gained the forest on the other side 
of the belt of bare ground. When I started from camp 
that morning I intended to return by night ; aod as I 
conjectured that this chase might be a long one, and pos- 
sibly entail sleeping out, I deemed it wiser to take a 
little grub, and procure some warmer clothing than the 
flannel shirt which was my only upper gai:ment. My 
camp was not far off, and not very much out of^ the 
direction the stag had taken, so putting the best of my 
long pair of legs foremost, or as my men called it, 
"untangling forked lightning,^^ I soon reached the little 
tarn, clo^e to the pebbly beach of which two piles of buffalo 
robes and bearskins, and the remains of a big camp-fire 
indicated our vagrants' domicile. After scribbling with a 
burnt stick from the fire on the skin surface of the nearest 



126 Camps in the Rockies » 

buflfalo robe, " Gone after big elk," so as to let the men 
know the reason of my absence if I did not turn up at dark, 
I snatched up half a loaf of bread, m}^ coat, and my faithful 
rucksack, and was off. Always ready packed for such emer- 
gencies, I knew the latter contained, small as was its volume 
and weight, the most essential things with which to pass a 
night or two in the woods without uncommonly great hard- 
ships. A quarter of an hour later I was on the track of the 
Wapiti. The ground was very broken, and the forest soon 
'^ pottered out " into detached patches, while groups of 
strangely-gnarled cedars and spruce, which finally gave 
wa}^ to an undulating " barren,'"' stiewn, wonderful to say — 
for I was on the very top ridge of the great chain, and no 
high peaks about — with huge detached boulders, whose 
origin only science could demonstrate. Here it was very 
difficult to track, for the ground was frozen hard. Fortu- 
nately, there were frequently recurring patches of snow 
from the last storm, and there my work was easier. On the 
other side of the barren there were strange-looking mounds, 
tipped with little groves of -trees. These mounds had 
precipitous banks, and in places spurs of the same soft soil, 
a sort of loam, connected them. On this ground I could 
easily tiack him ; and there, too, I saw from the tracks that 
he was no longer trotting, but v/alking. With varying 
fortune I followed on, doing my best not to lose the slot. As 
there were scores of old and new spoors about, I was obliged 
to distinguish mine more by the size than by anything 
else. It was no easy task, particularly as I had to keep 
a sharp look-out ahead, for the stag might be grazing on 
any one of the numerous forest-girt glades I was constantly 
crossing. I suppose I must have been about two or three 
hours peering my eyes out of my head, when in the distance 



Camps among Wapiti, 127 

I heard a regular " whistling ^' concert. There seemed to 
be hundreds of Wapiti, and I was left in no doubt that I was 
about to run on a large band. Probably the big stag was 
among them_, for his track led straight into the middle of 
them. I climbed a rocky hillock, thirty or forty feet in 
height, and there awaited the herd^ for on account of the 
wind_, which was athwart my course, I was afraid, not 
knowing the extent of the area covered by the band, to risk 
proceeding any further on their lee side. On they came, 
slowly grazing their way; at first a few detached bodies, each 
consisting of a few females with their more than half- 
grown calves at their side, herded along in each instance 
by a large stag, kept ^ery busy by his amorous attentions, 
and by the persistent impudence of young bucks, at whom 
many a vicious dig was levelled. Then gradually more and 
still more hove in sight, till at last the undulating barren 
was a moving mass of Wapiti — fighting, feeding, love- 
making, and "whistling,^' while I on my rocky perch was in 
the very midst of them. Some of the fighting was of a very 
determined character ; and remembering their great size 
— for only good stags engage in these desperate struggles 
— it is a grand sight to see two such lordly combatants 
rush at each other, their huge antlers crashing together 
with amazing force. Unlike the European stags — who, if 
their horns do not get interlocked, fly asunder as soon as 
the charge is delivered, to repeat the furious rush again 
and again — the Wapiti try rather to push; and, not beinf 
as quick as our European stag, who generally rips his 
antagonist's side, the wounds are mostly about the neck 
and shoulders. 

As I was very intent looking out for my big stag, I 
hardly pfiid sufficient attention to the general aspect of the 



128 Camps in the Rockies. 

scene, and did not even take time to approximately count 
the band, as is my wont on such occasions. At a rough 
estimate, there were six or seven hundred animals in it. 
Among them were two exceptionally large old bulls, 
each surrounded by a group of hinds far more numerous 
than those of the ordinary seraglios. A second's scrutiny 
with my powerful glasses proved, however, that neither 
was the one I was looking for. The main body was 
passing me on the safe side, but some had taken the lee- 
ward one — a matter of some anxiety to me, for I feared 
they could not help getting my wind. Nothing happened, 
however, the breeze, I presume, carrying the betraying 
taint over their heads. There I sat, and had to sit for two 
long hours. The open barren was apparently a well- 
known pleasaunce to the band, for they were in no hurry 
to leave it. 

My impatience can be imagined. Things looked very 
dark, for if the stag did not show up with the band it 
would of course be impossible to trail him any farther over 
ground tracked all to bits by such a number of animals. 
At last the coast was sufficiently clear to permit my 
stealing down and gaining the forest from whence the herd 
had issued, and through which my quarry must have 
passed. What to do next I knew not ; but I determined to 
continue my search as long as it was light, and if it 
proved futile, to get buck to camp by night. The forest, 
I discovered, was not very extensive. On the other side 
of it again was very broken ground, full of ravines and 
bad-land gullies. In one of these, larger and deeper than 
the rest, there grew a bunch of cotton wood- trees, with 
thick brush-cover round the base. I was running down 
the excessively steep slope of soft loam, when I heard twiga 



Camps among Wapiti, 129 

snapping,, and other unmistakable signs of a stag break- 
ing cover. I could not stay the impetus of my course, 
but managed to swerve off to one side, so as to get a better 
view of the opposite slope. Hardly had I done so when 
there, not more than seventy yards off, the big stag 
burst from the cover, his peculiarly grizzly colour con- 
vincing me of his identity the very first second I saw him. 
He was making down the gully at a double-quick trot, and 
a sharp corner would hide him tlie next moment ; so, with- 
out knowing very clearly what I did, I threw up my rifle 
and fired. Had I hit him ? I knew not, for my shot was 
a very quick one, and I was standing in a most awkward 
position on a steep bank, the soil of which was continually 
giving way under my feet. I imagined I heard the 
bullet strike, but the distance was too short to make out 
distinctly that reassuring sound, so well known to the 
rifleshot. The stag had vanished, without a sign or drop of 
blood to show I had hit him. As can be imagined, I was 
vastly excited, and had a grizzly at that moment started 
up in my path I think I would have shouted to him to 
get out of ray way. The first tiling to do was to see 
whether I had wounded my game. By marking the ground, 
I soon found in the clay bank which formed the back- 
ground to the Wapiti at the moment I fired, the hole made 
by my bullet ; and with my jack-knife I dug out the missile. 
The short distance it had penetrated into the clay, and the 
circumstance that its top was flattened, and that under the 
recurving bits of lead blood-stains could be seen, proved 
incoutestably that the ball had passed through some part of 
the animal, unluckily without striking any large bones. 
Notwithstanding that I knew from experience what an 
astonishing amount of lead Wapiti will often carry off, X 

K 



130 Camps in the Rockies. 

was greatly elated at what I had discovered, and also 
far too impatient to do what would have been the wisest 
thing under the circumstances_, namely, to return to camp, 
and on the following morning track the Wapiti with the dog. 
Griving him not more than half an hour's grace, I was on 
his slot very much too soon. At first I found drops of 
blood only on tbe near side of the track, then the}^ ap- 
peared on both sides ; that on the near side, being of dark, 
that on the off, of lighter colour, and flecked with bubbly 
froth — the latter, a sure sign the lungs were injured. 
Hence as I had shot him quartering*, I had hit him low, 
and rather too far back, and the bullet, ranging forward, 
had penetrated the right lung. 

It must have been about five when I shot, so Kttle more 
than an hour remained for tracking. Urged on by the 
hope of every minute coming up with the dying stag, I 
foolishly proceeded. I had not gone more than a mile when 
I struck a " couch '^ of the sick animal, which evidently he 
had just left. The blood was still warm, and by the 
quantities I judged the animal would have died very shortly 
had he not been roused to a last frantic effort by hearing, 
or rather winding, my approach. It is wonderful how 
far even the much smaller and feebler European stag will 
wander if he is thus alarmed. Life seems to receive a 
fresh lease ; and only too often will a stag, fatally wounded 
and not left to die in peace, elude the hunter and outrun 
his hounds. 

I was disgusted, and gave up further pursuit for that 
night ; for dusk was approaching, and I had to look for a 
camping-place. After a little search I discovered an 
inviting spot beneath a grove of spreading old trees, 
occupying a very sheltered nook under some high cliffs 



Camps among Wapiti, 1 3 1 

where fuel was abundant. The "iron store'* of my 
rucksack furnished an ample, though simple, supper ; 
and one of my usual little waistcoat-pocket companions 
helped me to wile away the long hours of the evening. 
Stretched out before the fire, with a log under my head, 
my stalking-cap and handkerchief as pillow, my face 
turned from the bright warm flames throwing a sufficiency 
of light upon the closely printed pages, several logs piled 
upon each other on my cold side as a wind-brake, 
while my other one was undergoing pleasant toasting — 
I have passed many a more dreary evening in drawing- 
rooms, many a more sleepless night in civilized beds. 
There is, however, a most uncanny chilly spell just pre- 
ceding dawn, which usually wakes one. It is about the 
only time one really feels — at least, in fine weather — the 
hardship of camping out without coverings, and with the 
thermometer, for hours, a good many degrees below 
freezing-point. Then it is, while the camp-fire is piled 
highest, that the few precious drops of whiskey — saved 
especially for this moment — taste uncommonly like more, 
and that the human form divine is voted solid and 
lumpish. The portion of your body that you can warm 
at the grateful fire seems ludicrously small; while the 
periphery of the rest of your shivering anatomy exposed 
to the icy blast appears vastly extended. How willingly 
you would sacrifice some of your impermeable depth for 
increased surface, to be able to unfold, as it were, your 
shivering humanity, and thaw it at the bonny blaze, as you 
or your butler dries the sheets of the Times in front of the 
cosy breakfdst-room fire. 

Fortunately, dawn in the West is not like the gradual 
awakening of Nature we know it to be in the old world. 

K 2 



132 Camps in the Rockies, 

The change from night to day is far more rapid ; and, 
what I have remarked in another place, namely, the 
newness of Nature^ seems to be betrayed also in this in- 
stance. She rouses herself with the vigorous impetuosity 
of robust youth which revels in contrasting extremes. 

The crumbs of last night's supper gave a scanty 
breakfast ; and I was on the track of my quarry at the 
first show of light. I will not weary the reader with 
an account of that long day's pursuit. The last gasp for 
life of the dying stag had carried him many a mile ; 
fortunately, not very much out of my way back to camp, 
otherwise I should have been in the most unpleasant fix 
of passing another night under a handy tree — this time, a 
wretchedly food- less and spirit-less being. 

It was late in the afternoon when I came up to the 
monarch of the Great Divide. There he laj^, where death 
had at last ended his gallant flight. He had been dead 
many hourSj for his body was quite rigid, and his eye 
lustreless and broken. He was released with merciful 
suddenness ; for yonder, not five yards off from where he 
lay, I could plainly see by his slot that he had been 
trotting with measured stride, when all at once his vital 
forces collapsed, and he pitched forward on his head, the 
lowest prongs of his antlers digging themselves for more 
than a foot into the soil — so deep, that unaided I could 
not release them. 

Of the many thousands of Wapiti I have seen, he was 
by far the largest, and must have weighed quite 10 cwt., 
for his antlers alone, on their arrival in Europe, tu-rned 
the scales at forty-four pounds. His skin was a very 
peculiar grizzlj^, and I was most anxious tc save it ; but it 
was much too late to do anything that day, even had I 



Camps among Wapiti. 133 

been able to turn tlie stag on bis back, wbich, without 
much loss of time, I found impossible. Cutting out, aa 
I always do, his two canine teeth, I found them to be 
of quite enormous size, nearly double that of any others 
I ever got. So uncommonly large were they, that when 
I subsequently happened to show them to one of the sub- 
chiefs of the Mountain Crow Indians, he offered me the 
pick of his ponies^ for them. 

With them in my pocket and his tongue in my riick- 
sack — the former as a very tangible proof of the great size, 
of my quarry — I left for camp, to return on the morrow for 
head and skin. 

It was after dark when a tired, and hungry, but withal 
good-humouredly satisfied person struck our camp. A 
single signal-shot had rung through the sombse forest and 
across the tranquil tarn, so when the belated one emerged 
from the inky gloom into the bright circle of ruddy light 
round the huge camp-fire, he found awaiting him a 
cheery welcome and a glorious supper. 

Next morning, Port and I, with a pack-horse, rode 
over to the dead stag. I have mentioned that I was 
anxious to save the skin, as its colour was unlike anything 
I had seen : "^ but Uncle Ephraim had this time acted the 
proverbial host, and when we got to the spot the carcass 
had disappeared. Two large bears had made a very satis- 
factory supper off it, and, as is usual with them, had 
cached (concealed) the remainder in a hole they had dug, 
leaving but the upper portions of the antlers protruding. 

* See Appendix. 

^ I have since observed a like instance of grizzly Wapiti ; but, not* 
withstanding ardent efiforts, I failed, owing to a disgraceful miss, to 
secure the owner of it. 



1 34 Camps in the Rockies. 

Considering that tlie surface of the ground was frozenj 
and that the hole must been quite three or four feet deep, 
it was a surprisingly quick piece of caching. With 
pointed sticks we dug out the upper portion of the carcass, 
which was uninjured, and thus rescued not only the best 
head of my collection, but also the one to which are 
attached the pleasautest memories. 

Many an idle half-hour have I passed on yonder corner 
lounge, from whence the grand outline of the majestic 
head can best be seen. No doubt some future Ruskin of 
the chase will build up and propound the hitherto un- 
enunciated bearing of Nature's works upon Art. For one 
of his examples let him take the spreading antlers of the 
stag, creations not only of graceful beauty, but also of 
architectonic boldness, with their pearled burr, their can- 
nelured beam, their tapering tines, their spreading sweep, 
while the angles formed by the tines and the main beam 
may well be supposed to have served as primitive models 
for the first Gothic arches. All have engrossed from the 
earliest prehistoric times the pictorial attempts of the human 
race. Things which administer to the domestic dail}^ wants 
of man, as did the staghorn for thousands of years, are 
wont to lose in his eyes the irapressiveness of their beauty ; 
and yet we see on the potsherd discovered in long-hidden 
*' Pfahlbauten," or on the Aquitanian relics of prehistoric 
men, the rude attempt to outline the hart's form. From 
the Eigvedas to record? of later days which narrate how 
silver images, such as Cervi avjentei^ were placed in 
ancient fanes and Christian churches, in commemoration 
of legends not dissimilar to that of Rome's foundation, we 
learn how the stag busied chisel, pencil, and pen. And, 
if we pass to later periods, to mediaeval times, we find that 



Camps anion^ Wapiti. 135 

in fhe vast forests of the main Continent of Europe, a cultus 
of worship of the stag's chase had sprung up; and when 
monarchism succeeded the rude reign of patriarchism, the 
stag became the royal game. The right to kill him was the 
exclusive privilege of the highest of the land. Ecclesiastic 
as well as secular sovereigns devoted their lives to his chase ; 
while Notahilia Yenatoris was, in the Sixteenth, Seven- 
teenth, and Eighteenth Centuries, the sole science of polite 
society.® In those days the courtier received from his 
earliest youth strict training in the arts of venery, and 
he had to know more about the seventy-two signs by 
which the slot of a " roj^al " could be recognized than of 
any other polite art. Those were the good old days, when 
nothing less than the Cerf de doiize-cors was killed, 
and such very singular customs prevailed as /«. the 
presentation on a silver salver of the droppings of the 
" royal," the object of the day's chase, to the royal mistress, 
by the master of the hunt kneeling at her feet — a cere- 
mony which, by-the-bye, was de rigueur also at the court of 
our good Queen Bess.^ Most of the Continental potentates 
were great hunters. So late as the commencement of the 
present century, we hear of one of these grizzly Nimrods, 
devoting his whole life to the chase of the stag, doffing 
his hat every time he passed the head of the largest hart 
he had killed, which hung with many hundreds of others 
in the galleries of his favourite '^schloss," and insisting 
that the gentlemen of his court should do the same. His 
ancestors from time immemorial were great staghunters; 
and the chronicles of that ancient house teem with the most 

^ See Appendix : Wapiti. 

' In Turberville's " Noble Arte of Venerie " (1575), this is quaintly 
illustrated. 



136 Camps in the Rockies. 

extravagant eccentricities^ some even more singular than 
the following instance, the fancy of Duke William the Red, 
who would order a great triumphal arch to be raised in 
the centre of the forest, and by dint of the extraordinarily 
complete equipage de chasse force the stags to run through 
the arch, where rosaries made of the orthodox number of 
wooden beads, only much larger than usual^ would be 
dexterously thrown over the antlers. " Thus prepared 
for death/' as the chronicler, from whom I take this, 
says, "they would rush on to meet it at the hands of 
the royal hunter." 

The beauty of outline clisplayed by a pair of good-sized 
and normal-shaped stag's antlers — I am referring here 
only to those of the red deer and Wapiti — is perhaps not 
of a kind.to strike the eye of the casual observer. 

There is probably no formation in nature so diflScult to 
portray correctly as a stag's head. It took even Landseer 
six years to grasp its wealth of ever-changing form ; 
and nothing will give one a better idea of the difficulties 
in this respect than to turn over the earlier sketches of 
great animal painters. Not to speak of several German 
masters in this department, who ultimately were worthy 
rivals of Landseer's skill, at least as far as red deer are 
concerned, and whose original sketches I have had occasion 
to examine, a study of the latter 's very numerous early 
attempts to depict this cod figuration of undulating lines 
will show what I mean.^ 

* Some idea of this circumstance can be gained by examining 
Landseer's sketches, giving many of his more youthful works, in the 
Art Journal for 1876 ; and, if I remember rightly, also for the 
preceding year. Of course, the original sketches bring this even more 
strikingly before one's eyes. 



Camps among Wapiti, 137 

But I am wandering far from Wapiti shooting; and 
though I could fill many a page with matter anent stag- 
lore and " antlermania," it is a subject which is anything 
but of general interest in the two great countries in the 
language of which these jottings are written. 

The shooting of my very first Wapiti, under the guid- 
ance of an urchin some fourteen years old, was a some- 
what ludicrous affair ; and as its recital will give the 
reader an idea of a Western family of market-hunters, I 
am tempted to relate it. The locality was Laramie Peak, 
once a well-known sporting-ground a hundred miles north 
of Cheyenne, in Wyoming, but now too near to frontier 
settlements to afibrd good sport. I had been following 
some mythical Bighorn on the peak — it was on my first 
trip, and I was yet of pleasant greenness— and was 
returning in the evening to our distant camp, when a 
shot in close proximity attracted me to a small glade-like 
opening in the forest. When I reached the spot I saw, 
lying in the centre of the treeless space, a large animal ; 
and, going closer, I found it was a Wapiti, apparently in 
the throes of death, for his legs were moving, and his 
body was not yet quite motionless. Going still closer, 
till I was about ten yards off, I perceived that the game 
had been brittled, and that the paunch and intestines were 
lying close to it, alongside of an outlandish rifle^ with a 
barrel some four or five feet long. No sportsman was 
visible ; a grey pony, rigged in Indian fashion, was graz- 
ing peacefully in close vicinity, its slashed ear betokening 
it to be of Indian origin. Strange to say, the Wapiti, 
though brittled was still moving, and, to my no little 
astonishment, I heard guttural sounds issuing from his 
inside. He was lying on his back, his antlers dug into 



138 Camps in the Rockies. 

the earth ; and on my stepping closer, the sounds took 
the shape of words,, and these again the form of some 
of the hardest and most blasphemous oaths of the Ameri- 
can tongue ever heard by me. Certainly^ if that Wapiti 
had not died of a legitimate bullet, he must have suc- 
cumbed to the language now issuing in sepulchral tones 
from his belly. 

I was naturally much surprised, for, great as were my 
expectations of the wonders which the "Great West" 
was to unfold to me, a speaking and swearing Wapiti was 
not among the sights I had hoped to meet. No doubt 
" bad medicine " hovered about this wild and lonely spot. 
I was not a little relieved, therefore, when the evil spirit 
presently took the shape of a pair of heels clad in mocca- 
sins, which made their appearance at the incision cut to 
brittle the game. A pair of legs clad in leathers reeking 
with blood, next made their appearance ; and soon body 
and head of a very diminutive creature, covered from 
head to foot with gore still warm and steaming, had 
wriggled itself out of the carcass, dragging out behind 
him the lungs, heart, and a part of the windpipe. A 
stream of tobacco juice, squirted from the mouth, which at 
once broadened into a grin, and a terse greeting, made up 
largely of blanks, " stranger," and two or three " guesses," 
dispelled my last doubts respecting the humanity of the 
creature. The boy — for such the being turned out to be — 
an urchin fourteen years old, but very dwarfed for his age, 
had soon informed me that he had '^ gone and done the 
bull" with his needle rifle, whose merits for range and 
precision he wearied not to extol, and which presently he 
handed to me for inspection. ISTot unlike our Eniield rifle 
of prehistoric day, it was of immense bore, and decidedly 



Camps among Wapitu 139 

a foot and a half longer than its owner was tail. The metal 
fastenings of the barrel to the stock were gone— raw 
hide or '^buck-string '' had taken their places— and the 
stock was of home-made origin^ studded with brass nails, 
and notched in the most fantastic manner. The owner, 
however, informed me with much pride, that he had shot 
already over two hundred elks and blacktails with it, not 
forgetting two cinnamon (grizzly) bears, which he had 
potted, I presumed, from a safe place. The boy had come 
upon a gang of moving "Wapiti, and, picking out the 
biggest bull, had rolled him over by a very true shot some 
two hundred yards off. Questioning him why he hid 
himself in the Wapiti, his grinning answer informed me 
that it was his usual manner of getting at the lungs, for 
his arms were far too short to reach them in the usual 
way, and he was not strong enough to cleave the breast- 
bone and brisket with his knife. 

While talking he had whipped out an Indian scalping- 
knife (sharpened only on one side of the edge), and in less 
than half an hour had skinned the huge stag in the most 
workmanlike manner — a fire of guesses respecting the 
weight of meat and tallow, interlarded with frequent dis- 
charges of tobicco-juice, accompanying the greasy work. 
The green hide, weighing about a hundredweight, was 
of course too heavy for the boy to lift on his pony ; and, 
as he explained to me that he was going to take it home, 
leaving the carcass "empty and clean,'^ covered with 
boughs, to be fetched on the morrow, I was expecting he 
would ask me to help him put the hide on his horse. But 
so used does the merest child get to the great Western 
axiom of self-help, that he preferred accomplishing this 
in his own way, which he did with the quick readiness of 



140 Camps in the Rockies. 

long practice. Taking his raw-hide lariat from Ms saddle, 
lie gave it a turn or two round the horn, and bringing up 
the pony to the Wapiti which was still lying on the skin, 
lie twisted the lariat round the neck of the hide, gave tlie 
horse a kick, and the next instant the skin had been 
pulled from under the stag, and was dragging behind the 
pony, wbo, however, soon stopped, evidently well up to 
his work. Going up to him, the boy tied the loose end 
of the lariat to the two hind legs of the hide, and taking 
the rope across the smooth saddle, and placing one leg 
against the horse's flanks as a purchase, had in a twink- 
ling hoisted one half of the fleshy mass saddle-high. 
Doing the same with the fore part, it was then easy to 
arrange the skin in the most convenient manner. The 
rapid and practical manner of the urchin's arrangements 
proved that, though youthful in years and diminutive 
in stature, he was an old hand at packino^ elk hides. 
ISTot a knot was slung superfluously ; with rapid but silent 
steps he moved hither and thither, now covering the huge 
carcass with fresh boughs, or with one circular sweep of 
his sharp knife extracting the Wapiti's tongue and 
fastening it to his saddle ; then tightening the primitive 
rope and cord girth of the old pony^ he had soon brought 
his preparations to a finish. 

Before mounting he spread a square of the tattered 
saddle blanket, which he had taken from under the old 
ruin of a saddle on the pony's back, over the carcass of 
the stag, while a rag of a handkerchief he wore round his 
head instead of a hat was fastened to a stick, and stuck 
flag fashion into the ground close to the dead game, 
with the object of frightening away the wolves and bears — • 
a precaution which for the first night is often efiectuaL 



Camps among Wapiti, 141 

Then the great gun and the small boy got on the top of 
the pony, which the latter did by using the former as a 
sort of leaping pole. It was quite dark by this time, and 
being in a perfectly strange country, I gladly availed 
myself of the boy's invitation to partake of a '^ squar' *' 
meal," and share a buffalo robe with his big brother, 
rather than chance losing my way in the forest, especially 
as the boy had informed me that next day some grand 
sport could be enjoyed. A big gang of elk, numbering, 
he said, quite 2000, had been seen by him in the afternoon, 
a small detached portion of which he had struck later on, 
and out of which he had killed his stag. 

His home was several miles off, so trudging at the 
rider's side, he was soon telling me of his shooting, or, as 
he called it, " gunning/' His father had moved to the 
neighbourhood three or four years previously, when 
Indians were still roaming through the Laramie Peak 
country. He was now making a living as market-hunter, 
supplying the next settlement, forty -five miles distant, 
with game, selling it all to one man, who kept a " road- 
ranch e *^ (inn), and at the same time was the grocer, dry- 
goods store keeper, sheriff, and postmaster of the settlement. 
All game — only the hind-quarters are used for food — 
fetched three cents per pound ( 1 |(i. ), which, however, was not 
paid in cash, but in kind - coffee, sugar, flour, ammunition, 
and all those numerous articles in which a Western 
merchant deals. Money they hardly ever saw ; horses 
and cattle were traded — a certain number of sacks of 
flour or pounds of plug tobacco forming the usual base 
of their barter. In due time we reached the log shanty, 
standing in a wide clearing, fenced in by stout rails. 
Here the stock was kept during night, while in daytime 



142 Camps in the Rockies. 

the horses and cows grazed over the mountains. Loud 
barking, and a peculiar shrill call, answered by the boy 
with a loud lialloo, gave us a welcome. A flood of light 
issued FiMin the open doorway, and a crowd of men, half- 
grown j^ouths, and two or three women, were soon grouped 
round the tired old horse. A minute later I had found 
my way into the hut, where a kindly *^Come right in, 
stranger,'^ welcomed me. 

The hut, about fifteen feet by eighteen feet, was divided 
into two compartments, one the kitchen and living room, the 
other the sleeping-quarters for the females and two married 
couples, while the sons were housed in a barn close by. 
Everything looked clean and comfortable, though ex- 
ceedingly primitive. Wapiti skins lined the walls, and 
buffalo robes formed the carpet, while a large table in the 
centre was laid out for supper, with plates and cups of 
tin, and buckhorn knives and forks. Everything but the 
cooking and eating utensils was home made, from the 
buckskin garments of the men to the coarse homespun 
dresses of the women. A large rack, occupying one 
wall, held some twelve or fifteen different arms, from the 
Winchester repeater — bartered, as the father presently 
informed me, for a bale of otter and wolf skins, the real 
value of which was perhaps ten times the price of the 
cheap gun — to the antiquated Kentucky pea rifle. Every 
arm had its name. Here was an " Uncle Ephraim '' or a 
*^ Track-maker,'' there an " Aunt Sally ^' and a *"' Sister 
Julia ;" and every one had some special degree of merit and 
long gunning yarns attached to it. Besides the father 
and mother, three sons, and two daughters, there were just 
then on a visit an aunt, with two half-grown sons and a 
little girl, so that the supper- table, of ample proportions, 



Camps among Wapiti, 143 

was somewhat crowded. The ring of faces, from the old 
man's grizzled head to the seven-year- old damsel's fresh 
little physiognomy, afforded an interesting study. Happy 
content was impressed upon every feature, and soon loud 
laughter rang through the tumble-down shanty. Except 
a certain primitiveness of manner, there was little to 
remind one of the isolated position of this little community. 
The next settlement of whites was forty-five miles away, 
and except the grown-up son, who in summer and autumn 
took the game in a heavy waggon once or twice every 
fortnight to market, none of the members ever came into 
contact with civilization. In winter they were entirely 
blocked up, the narrow glen through which communication 
was alone possible becoming impassable. The newest 
paper was four months old, and for winter literature a 
bale of old illustrated weeklies were annually traded for 
wolfskins, and these were the only '^reading matter " the 
family possessed. In the presence of their elders the 
young fellows' conversation exhibited a marked absence 
of foul-mouthed language, in which the}^ otherwise 
indulged with remarkable force of expression. 

Many an amusing yarn of their gunning adventures 
and primitive life enlivened the evening hours, and it was 
late when I and the sons and cousins retired to our barn, 
if such a building could be called, having only three 
walls, and breezy spaces quite six inches wide between 
the beams of which it was built. Hides were nailed on 
the outside to dry, and a row of Wapiti hind-quarters 
were hung on the top beam. In the middle of the night 
I was awakened by deep formidable growls, and con- 
stant scratching on the beams close to where I lay. Not 
knowing what to make of it, I awoke my neighbour, who. 



144 Camps in the Rockies, 

on listening for a second, quieted me by telling me they 
were only *^bar^' trying to reach the wapiti quarters. 
Two minutes later he was snoring again, evidently less put 
out by a bear's visit than I was. We were up before 
sunrise, and fv^hen, after a dip in the icy-cold waters of a 
neighbouring stream, I reached the hut, I found the 
family already assembled at breakfast. 

Everybody, except the youngest daughter and the little 
niece, was going after the "gang'' of elk. The ponies 
(some nine or ten) were already hitched to posts in front 
of the shanty, and all the antiquated rifles — the " Sister 
Julia," ^'Track-maker," and "Greased Lightning,^' the 
latter being the name of my dwarf friend's shooting-iron 
- — were cleaned and laid ready for use. The little hunt- 
ing party presented a quaint and yet not unpicturesque 
eight— men and j^outbs, women and girls, all, male and 
female alike, armed with long rifles and revolvers, and 
mounted on shaggy ponies— and certainly it had about it 
the spice of novelty. After hearty good-byes to the 
young girl and the child standing in the open doorway, 
we started off" at a round pace. Old Newland — for that 
is the name of this isolated family — lent ine a horse 
for the day, as I was eager to catch a glimpse of this 
big gang. The previous evening young Newland had 
seen them some nine or ten miles ofl", going in a westerly 
direction ; it was therefore decided to make sure of them 
by cutting them ofl" on their usual route, well known 
to the family, for it was the usual autumn move of elk. 
The party kept together, except my boy friend and I, 
and by going m a more westerly direction, sought to strike 
the band before the main body came up. We had not 
gone far when I saw two big bulls moving over a very 



Camps among Wapiti, 145 

steep slope on the peak, at the base of whicli we were 
riding. We at once came to a dead halt, and decided to 
follow them on foot, the ground being too broken and 
steep for horses to venture on. The elk evidently did not 
belong to the main gang, for they were coming from an 
entirely difierent direction. Irobably they were in sight 
or had the wind of the herd, and were now about to join 
them. Dismounting, we climbed the precipitous mountain 
side, rising, at an angle of quite fifty degrees, as rapidly 
as we could, and in the course of about twenty minutes 
had reached the spot where I had seen them. Turning, 
suddenly round, I saw spread out at our feet, some four or 
five hundred feet below us, and perhaps half a mile off, 
a plateau, on which were grazing a vast number of 
Wapiti. It needed not the boy's '^ That be them,^' to 
assure me that it was the big gang. Sitting down on a 
convenient rock, I had a long look with my glass, en- 
deavouring to get some correct estimate of the number. 
That there were not two thousand, I saw very soon. 
There were three large groups, each of about four or five 
hundred, and each again divided into smaller bands. 
They were moving slowly westward, grazing as they pro- 
ceeded. It was a grand sight, especially to one who had 
never before witnessed the like. 

Knowing that the main party would strike them 
presently, we decided to follow the two big bulls we had 
first sighted. The ground was excessively broken, and 
covered with loose stones, making it nigh impossible to 
move noiselessly with boots or shoes. The urchin, with 
his soft moccasins — to which, at that period of my trip, 
I had not yet taken — had naturally great advantage over 
me, and he took a special delight in leading me over 

L 



146 Camps in the Rockies. 

the roughest ground, where stones were constantly set 
rolling by my awkwardly heavy shooting-boots. Jumping 
from rock to rock, his huge rifle, carried in his right hand, 
used as " alpenstock " to steady himself, the little fellow 
moved along at a very rapid pace. We soon sighted the 
bulls, who were trudging along a small dry watercourse 
half a mile oflp. Here my youngster got excited, and, 
forging ahead at a '* level " run, I was left behind, with 
no chance of approaching the game with the necessary 
noiselessness. 

Scrambling up the next high rock, I scanned the 
ground, and saw that the ravine selected by the bulls 
turned sharply some few hundred yards ahead, enabling 
me, by crossing a slope of huge boulders thrown pell-mell 
together, to cut off the game should they remain in the 
gulch. There was no need to keep quiet; so, putting 
my best foot forward, I ran, or rather leaped, the dis- 
tance in good time. On reaching the desired spot I saw 
the two Wapiti right under me, still in the watercourse, and 
the moccasined boy-stalker just settling down to open fire 
at eighty or ninety yards. I had run nearly as far as he 
had, but was considerably '^pumped,-" and, besidt^s, my 
shot would be quite double or treble as far as his. Before 
he had time to shoot, the game had got my wind, and 
swerving sharply, ascended the very precipitous sides of 
the gulch. Whipping out my glass, I watched the boy'a 
fire. Taking the leader first, which was the smaller of 
the two, he hit him out of his seven shots every time, but 
so indifferently that the stag's movements were not im- 
peded. 

They were now close to the top, and twenty yards more 
would take them out of our sigrht. I had to fire over the 



Camps among Wapiti, 147 

boy's "head, as the last movement of the game had brought 
him right between them and me.. The boy evidently had 
never heard an Express bullet ping over his head, for 
immediately after my first shot he jumped up, evidently 
not a little startled. A second, third, and fourth followed 
in quick succession, passing some fifteen or twenty feet 
over his head ; and when my fire came to an end, both 
bulls and the boy were lying stretched on the ground 
— the two former dead, the latter sorely put out by " that 
thar singing cannon,^' as he persisted in naming my '500 
bore Express, which, before he had seen its efiect and 
heard its report, had appeared to him somewhat popgun- 
like in comparison to bis punt rifle. We found both bulls 
to be good- sized animals, but with small heads, which 
seemed, however, very fine ones just then. The bigger 
one had his back broken by my Express, and no other 
injury ; the other one was riddled by bullets — the boy's 
seven and one of mine, which latter had knocked him 
over. It was my first Wapiti — indeed, the first one I had 
ever shot at — and of course I was highly elated with my 
success. Moreover, the boy paid me the compliment that, 
for a '^ tenderfoot," I had done " mighty well." Higher 
still did I rise in his esteem when I presented him with 
my bull, hide and all, reserving only the head. 

Being anxious to return to my camp, where I knew my 
people would hi uneasy on my behalf, I left the boy skin- 
ning the animals, and again to dive into his gory hiding- 
place, and struck off across the range to where my camp 
was situated. On reaching the height I saw with my 
glass, four or five miles away, the big gang, now moving at 
a rapid pace, followed by black spots dodging about the 
herd. Three hours later I was back in my camp. Months 

L 2 



14S Camps in the Rockies, 

afterwards I heard the result of their big '^ fall *' huntr 
They killed that day, if I remember rightly, some twenty 
odd head. 

To strike Wapiti where tbere are plenty is not so much 
a matter of luck — as is the case, for instance, with bear — 
but rather the result of an accurate knowledge of the 
ground your expedition intends to cover. Where there 
will be hundreds in September, there may not be a single 
head six weeks later. 

So, for instance, in the Laramie Peak country I doubt 
if there was a Wapiti there a week before "moving time.'* 
I had been there for two or three weeks, and had not come 
across a single track. This was several years ago (1879), 
and now, I suppose, not even while " moving '^ do these 
animals visit that otherwise very handy range of mountains. 
A week after this not unsuccessful debut j we struck a 
favourite whistling-place of elk. It was in the eastern 
extremities of the Rattlesnake Kange, where the peculiar 
formation of the barien *' bad-lands" is here and there 
rendered less repulsive by the occasional presence of 
forests growing on level plateaux, formed by deep eroded 
ravines cutting up the whole country into a number of 
flat-topped hills, of much the same height but varying 
extent. The one we were about to visit was a solid square ; 
the sides, about 400 feet high, were, if not absolutely pre- 
cipices, yet of amazing steepness, and none but Western 
horses could have scrambled to the top. It was no easy 
matter to find a practicable approach, and I remember we 
went very nearly round the entire mountain square before 
we found a Wapiti trail broad enough to allow our pack- 
horses to pass up. The top was about four miles in cir- 
cumference, and, as I have said, comparatively level ; in 



Camps among Wapiti, 149 

the centre a grass-covered barren, while a fringe of very 
dense forest formed the outer circle. On this land-girt 
island, as one might call it, there were a couple of good 
springs of water, and the barren was covered with peculiarly- 
fine bunch-grass. After rather an eventful ascent up 
the narrow trails with the precipice on one side, for 
our horses were as yet unaccustomed to this kind of 
work, we reached the top, and found not only the 
forest but also the open literally swarming with Wapiti. 
We were not yet quite beyond the fringe of fron- 
tier settlements, a Fort was fifty miles off, and a ranche 
not more than five-and-thirty ; but the remarkably unso- 
phisticated fearlessness of the game, whicb to me then was 
most surprising, and the absence of the slightest trace to 
indicate that human beings had ever been there, led us to 
suppose that except Indians, who were still roaming about 
the neighbourhood, the forbidding nature of the surround- 
ing country, which was a desert-like wild, had kept off 
human approach. We pitched camp where forest and 
barren met, right in the middle, as it were, of whistling 
Wapiti. We could see them from the camp-fire, as half a 
mile off they were grazing on the barren. Our noon meal 
over, which I hastened as much as I could, to the disgust, I 
am afraid of the men, Port and T left for a stalk, if so the 
ludicrously easy approach to the unwary game deserved 
to be* called. The only thing to which attention had to be 
paid was the wind. With that in our favour. Port 
actually brought me up to within sixty or eighty yards of 
a band grazing on the level open, quite 600 yards from 
the nearest trees or bushes. Of course we had to wriggle 
along, seeking cover behind straggling and stunted sage- 
brush, not higher than ten or twelve inches. 



1 50 Camps in the Rockies. 

This was my first lesson in "Western stalking, and strangely 
easy it seemed to me, tliougli, I cannot deny tlie glorious 
sight of many hundreds of splendid stags, with heads which 
then seemed of the very largest dimensions, but which now 
would appear very moderate ones,^ carried me away, and 
awoke that reprehensible love of slaughter inherent ia 
most men^s natures. Picking out only the very best heads 
I made an easy right and left, my first one at this grand 
game, the next two shots being misses, or next to it, for 
one of them grazed my third bulFs back, while with my 
fifth I grassed him. I had killed the three biggest stags 
out of the herd, and though I could have continued ping- 
ing away with my long-range Express, I had sufficient 
control over myself to eschew putting fresh cartridges into 
the rifle. Not so, however, -when after gralloching and 
sawing oft' the horns of the victims, we struck a mile or so 
further on another band. Among them again some fine 
antlers, of which I secured tliree pairs, thus acquitting 
myself (as I had stalked the latter by myself) to the entire 
satisfaction of Port, who was usually not given to pay 
compliments. By the end of the second day in this 
natural game-park, I had enough of Wapiti shooting — or 
rather, the wanton waste that I would have perpetrated 
had I continued to let my rifle have free scope, would 
have been unjustifiably great, for beyond our own im- 
mediate wants and a couple of pony-loads of meat I had 
promised the people at the nearest ranche, there were, in 
the absence of Indians, no other customers for the venison. 
I killed nine bulls — all good heads — in that locality, 

^ The size of Wapiti antlers varies considerably. The largest are 
Tie^er found on the Plains, but always in high altitudes, in timber; 
at least this is the general opinion of all trustworthy hunters, and ii 
fully borne out by m^ own experience. 



Camps among Wapiti, 1 5 i 

and, without exaggeration, could easily have trebled the 
number. My men, I* need not say, were somewhat amused 
at this, for they very well saw how my hands itched to 
grab for the Express every time a "Wapiti broke cover 
near us. The Western hunter seems to fancy the game 
resources of his home perfectly limitless, and exhibits a 
supreme indifference to the reverse side of the ^^ first come 
first served," hence is often astonished at what he calls 
English squeamishness. To a friend a Western guide 
once said, ^^ You have come a good many thousand miles 
to shoot, and now that we have at last struck game where 
it is plenty, you shrink from depriving the rascally Red- 
skins or a parcel of skin-hunters of what is just as much 
yours as theirs. Certainly you Britishers are strange 
chaps.^' We remained a day or two longer, but I devoted 
my attentions exclusively to Bighorn, the tracks of whom 
we had seen on some very broken bad- land cliffs on 
the Western extremity of our "park." Except in the 
perfectly wild regions, such as the Wind Eiver and 
Soshone Ranges, I have never seen game so fearless as 
in this spot. One morning we found a grouse perched 
on the sailcloth that covered our buffalo-robe beds. Only 
when the inmate threw his rugs back did the bird take 
flight. Antelope bucks, always curious at this season of 
the year, used to approach quite close, eyeing the blaze 
of the camp-fire with astonishment. 

Stalking on bright moonlight nights during the stags' 
rutting season has ever been one of my favourite sports ; 
and of the many good harts I have killed in the Old World, 
to none are attached such pleasant recollections as to 
those few rolled over after a long and exciting stalk 
througli the tranquil hours of a fine moonlight October 
night in the Alps. At first disappointed on missing the 



1 5 2 Camps in the Rockies. 

blood-stirring "call" of the European '*" royal ^^ as he 
challenges his foe across yalley and tarn, the whistle of the 
American stag has, as I have already said, a weird charm 
not easily to describe. Every kind of stalking is much 
easier in the New than in the Old AVorld, not only on 
account of the greater quantities and greater fearlessness 
of the game, but also owing to the nature of the ground, 
and to the fact that during autumn the wind blows 
constantly from the same point, changing only at the 
approach of bad weather. All these circumstances com- 
bine in making Wapiti hunting a toilless pleasure — 
in fact, in the long-run rather too much so. There 
are few of those exciting moments when, with breath 
indrawn the little finger is wetted to discover the direc- 
tion of the breeze, which with us is of such changeful 
temper ; none of those memorable half-hours stretched 
motionless at full length in the grass, pendent with 
heavy dew, as with beating heart you watch the stag 
issue from the sombre forest heavy with the fragrant 
perfume of the pine, stalking forth in all the strength and 
pride of a monarch on to the little dell where the bright 
moonlight throws quaint shadows of his noble proportions, 
his breath issuing from his dilated nostrils upon the frosty 
air in vapoury clouds blending with the gauze layer of 
luminous steam which envelopes Mother Earth. No proud 
call re-echoes through the silent ] right from crag to crag 
those welcome seconds during which, with bared feet and 
crouching form, the blood rushing wildly through your 
tingling veins, you stride over fallen trees, cross the dark 
brook, wending your noiseless step through the maze of 
lichened pines, as, with your rifle to your shoulder, you 
approach the heedless quarr^^, thereby betrayed. And 



Ciif reps among Wapiti, 153 

no sucli experiences as, when you have approached to within 
a dozen yards and already perceive through the network 
of brush and pine branches the faint outline of the stag 
lit up by a fitful moonbeam, you behold him suddenly dash 
away, and with inflated neck, bristling hair, and head 
thrown well back, crash through the dense timber : for 
upon his fine ear there has re-echoed an answering call 
to his challenge, and long before you have time to feel 
your discomfiture your quarry is far away, rushing on- 
ward to meet his rival in combat. 

In European wild preserves, let them be ever so well 
stocked, such a chance does not present itself twice in the 
course of one night. If you have either alarmed or missed 
your stag, farther pursuit is useless for that occasion, while 
here ten minutes will put you on the track of another call- 
ing Wapiti. It is no wonder, therefore, that the Western 
chase is after some experience found to be wanting in some 
of the more refined charms of the same pursuit in Europe. 
While in the Old World you are not as a rule over- 
fastidious regarding the size of the head you bag, in the 
New World great slaughter would be the necessary con- 
sequence of indiscriminate shooting. The excitement 
incidental to the first ** go " at a herd of great stags of 
which I have spoken wears off very quickly, and soon you 
recognize the necessity of shooting only those with first- 
cla>s antlers worth the endless trouble and bother of 
transportation. Bright as the moonlight is, it is never- 
theless very hard to tell the size of heads ; and the four 
or five Wapiti I have rolled over on such occasions, have 
invariably turned out to be smaller than I anticipated 
when I shot them. 



1 54 Camps in the Rockies 



CHAPTER YI. 

CAMPS ON THE TRAIL OF THE BIGHOBN. 

Sporting trophies — Newness of the landscape — Mauvaises terres-~> 
The Bighorn at home — Size and weight — Fremont and De Saus- 
sure — Peculiarities of the Bighorn — My big ram — How I lost 
my measuring-tape — Sheep-eater Indians — Scab. 

From my earliest youth the breezy heiglits of the Alps 
have been my favourite playground. Before I entered 
the teens it was my boyish ambition to roam for days at 
a time in Alpine regions on or above Timberline ; at first 
attended by a keeper, but soon, at my pressing request, 
trusted to my own faculties to find my way out of the 
sundry little scrapes into which my j^outhful ardour for 
sport was apt to lead me. Later on, days extended into 
weeks — not always of sunny summer and clear autumn, 
but frequently of frosty winter weather, which sent fierce 
snowstorms whirling around the peaks and passes I used 
to haunt. The reader, who will, perhaps, excuse these 
very irrelevant reminiscences, can therefore imagine that 
I visited the uplands of the E/Ockies with expectations by 
no means very modest. The one or two specimens of 
Bighorn I had seen in European collections, and especially 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn, 1 5 5 

some heads friends brought from the American wilds, had 
roused in me the wish to '^ go and do likewise " (N.B., if 
possible, better) ; for, in truth, there is no more covetous 
being than the articled apprentice to the craft of venery, 
and decidedly there is no sight more apt to send him over 
Oceans and across Continents than such trophies as the 
majestic horns of a really good ram, or the huge branch- 
ing antlers of a fine Wapiti head. The former affords, of 
all others in the West, to the sportsman fond of old- 
fashioned stalking, and not over-easily fatigued by 
longish and often fruitless climbs on the weirdly-formed 
mauvaues terres peaks, by far the most interesting sport. 

To prevent further interruption to my tale of the Big- 
horn-chase, let me in this place say a few words on the 
main characteristics of his home. I have called the West 
outrageously new. Its newness is by no means confined 
to men, manners, and cities ; there is something decidedly 
new also about that portion of the mountain scenery of 
the Rockies called bad-lands. 

The bold rock escarpments and cliffs, in places quite as 
jagged as any we have in Europe, the fissures, cliffs, and 
canyons — the latter of unrivalled depth — one and all betray 
a nakedness that somehow is irreconcilable with old age. 
The absence of all the beautiful mosses and lichens, 
features which that defiler of Nature, M. Taine, in a loath- 
some simile, calls vegetable ulcers and leprous spots, 
deprive the mountains of the West of that picturesque 
look of hoary age so peculiar to those of most other 
Continents. 

Nature seems to destroy and to reconstruct at a much 
faster rate in the New than in the Old World. Land- 
Blips seem to be ever at work in despoiling slopes of tha 



156 Camps in the Rockies. 

greensward; and before a new coat of vegetation can 
spring up, and thus hide the mountain's glaring naked- 
ness, a repetition of the disaster again wrecks the scene. 
The extremes of heat and cold, liable, as I have said, to 
vary as much as from eighty to ninety degrees in the 
course of day and night, and the remarkable dryness of 
the atmosphere, chip the rocks and fray the outline of 
the cliffs with an energetic aggressiveness well in keeping 
with the power which distinguishes natural as well as 
human forces in the West. 

Where bad-lands, or manvaises ferres — -the name 
given to them by the old Canadian coureurs de bois — 
occur, the whole country, often many thousands of square 
miles in extent, lacks the upper crust of vegetation, which 
seems to have been carried off by some great flood, and 
left only ruins behind it. 'Not only is the general aspect 
one of utter decay, but the very outlines of these singular 
geological formations have about them a resemblance to 
great architectural works that have fallen to pieces. But 
this, the reader will exclaim, is surely contradicting 
the newness of the landscape with which I introduced 
these remarks. Ruins are, however, not necessarily the 
result of age. Nowhere does the traveller come across 
so many signs of deplorable decay as just in the West. 
He can see entire " cities,^' erected a few years back, and 
inhabited by several thousands of eager miners, totally 
deserted and slowly crumbling to ruin, the playthings of 
gales and dry-rot. In his wanderings through the 
remoter portions of the countr}^ he will frequently come 
upon abandoned log-dwellings, but a few months before 
the home of families, and now a sad picture of desolation. 
In like manner must we judge of the ruins of ^Nature, 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn, 157 

nowliere more strikingly presented than in tlie bad- 
lands. The lifeless waste is not the work of immeasur- 
able eternity, but the result of geologic changes of com- 
paratively recent origin. 

Geologists tell us that notwithstanding their altitude 
vast inland seas occupied the present site of bad-lands. ^ 
The spires, pinnacles, towers, or more compact chains, 
standing either isolated or in semi-detached masses, are 
the remains of the once more or less level bottom of the 
lakes, water having carved them by erosion into their 
present shape, which, to make a very homely comparison, 
one might liken to the channelled surface of a walnut 
kernel. In a country where scientific exploration dates 
back for not more than fifteen or twenty years, it is next 
to impossible to mark the stride of Nature's revolutions. 
In one or two instances, however, we are enabled to 
ascertain details concerning the mysterious drying up of 
lakes, and the changed aspect of bad-land formation. 
Thus, it is known that the country along the upper valley 
of the Mississippi and Red River of the North has either 
risen or dried up. The water level of lakes within 
forty miles of St. Paul has sunk six feet in twenty- 
five years, and men are living who knew hunters who at 
one time canoed over portions of the Red River Valley, 
which is 350 miles long, and from 70 to 100 inwidth.^ 

The levels of all lakes in the West, including the great 

* King, in his " Sierras," page 185, says : " During the cretaceous 
and tertiary periods, the entire basin from the Rocky Mountains to 
the Blue Mountains of Oregon was a fresh-water lake." Professor A. 
Geikie gives a very lucid description of bad-lands, in Macmillan^ 
July, 1881, which is well worth reading. See Appendix. 

2 Eeport of the Commissioners of the Royal Agricultural Interests 
Commission, who visited the United States in 187- . 



158 Camps in the Rockies, 

Salt Lake, in Utab, are known to be sinking ; and to mention 
the entire disappearance of a lake within the past five- an d- 
twenty years, the instance of the Market Lake, in Idaho, 
can be quoted. Ljdng in the Snake River Valley, it was 
visited by a Government expedition, under Lieutenant 
Mullan, in 1854. It was then a large and beautiful sheet 
of water, twelve or fourteen miles in length. Its site is 
now a dry sandy depression. The Chimney Rock, a 
high isolated shaft of bad-land formation, in Central 
Wyoming, standing close to the old emigrant trail, and 
thus coming under the notice of early travellers, was 
measured in Fremont's time, i.e. nearly forty years ago, 
and has since that period decreased, so I am told by good 
authority, close upon 100 feet. When I passed it in 
1879, the detritus constantly crumbling from its walls had 
accumulated in great heaps round its base. 

In colouring, also. Western scenery exhibits a certain 
crudeness, the reverse of mellow age. A bird's-eye view 
of *' bad-land " reminds one of early pictorial attempts of 
primitive races, who, when depicting works of nature, 
were in the habit of first drawing, in uncouth outline, the 
diagrams of what they intended to represent, and then 
filling them in with colours quite arbitrarily chosen. 
The compositions were not only void of all principles of 
perspective and chiaroscuro, but also lacked the primary 
condition of all ideal art — the harmony of tints. A broad 
vista of such verdureless bad- land '*buttes" or peaks, 
lighted up by the intensely searching achromatic sunlight 
peculiar to these regions, where the glaring brilliancj^ of 
day is unrelieved by shadow or nebulous half -distances , 
leaves on one's mind the impression of bizarre crudenesa 
Wherever we glance we see the sti'atified bands of succes- 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn, 159 

sive layers of diiferently coloured conglomerates, some ot 
clay -like, others of pumice-like consistency. Here stands 
one great isolated crag, five or six hundred feet in height. 
The next pinnacle of equally fantastic shape is half a 
mile ofi", yet it is easy to see that every one of the six or 
eight various bands of disintegrating rock, or the seams 
of oxides, silicates, sulphates, or carbonates which are 
very plainly visible on the precipitous faces of both, 
exactly correspond with each other, and that in both the 
blackjthe brown,the pea- green, the purple, and the vermilion 
streaks follow each other with the same regularity. These 
bands being of different homogeneity offer not precisely the 
same resistance to the denuding effects of rain and frost, 
and hence narrow shelves are formed, that run generally 
horizontally, but always parallel to each other across the 
precipitous face of the peak or hill. Geuerally these 
ledges are not wider than a few feet ; while in other places 
they will be broad, and rise tier-like from the bottom. 
On these platforms there is a very scanty growth of grass 
— so scanty indeed as to be hardly perceptible to the eye, 
but they are, nevertheless, the favourite dwelling-places 
of our quarry, the Bighorn. Here, too, the stalker has a 
good chance of approaching them unobserved ; he must,, 
however, to be able to undertake this, possess a clear head, 
and not know what giddiness is ; for often the ledges are 
very narrow, and the height of the precipice stupendous. 
Many an enjoyable creep of an hour or two have I ven- 
tured, and many a pleasant family still-life scene have I 
watched in close proximity, to be finally rudely disturbed, 
if the paterfamilias happened to have good horns, by the 
crack of my Express. In such localities it was not 
infrequently quite impossible to save any of the meat, for 



1 60 Camps in the Rockies, 

often it was as much as I could do to saw off tlie horns, 
and, tying a short cord to thera, drag them behind me as 
I crept back to safer ground. 

But enough of this preamble, let us now speak of the 
reality — the bold and majestic ram, standing motionless 
on yonder giddy shelf, showing in perfect repose the classic 
outline of his noble head against the blue of the Rocky 
Mountain sky, as if cut in cameo fashion by the deft hand 
of a Grecian sculptor. With his sturdy, massive body, his 
thick-set limbs firmly planted on the protruding ledge, 
looking so dangerously fragile in comparison to its load, 
his small head carried high, as if the heavy horns were a 
mere feather's weight, he looks the emblem, not of agility, 
as does the chamois, but of proud endurance. Of all game 
that calls the Rocky Mountains, peculiar and charac- 
teristic as their natural features are, its home, he is the 
truest t3^pe of their grand solitude and barren vastness. 

The Bighorn iflvis Montana), also called Grosse Come, 
Cimarron, or Mountain Sheep, is closely related to the 
monster of his species, the Nyan Argali, or Ovis Ammon, 
the most famous game of Thibet. He is slightly smaller, 
but the horns are very much of the same formation, 
curve, and monstrous size. In build, coat, and habitat the 
Bighorn resembles the European ibex, perhaps, more than 
any other animal, the chief exterior difference being, as 
is perhaps hardly necessary to say, the shape of the horns, 
which in the former are curved, sometimes like those of 
a domestic ram, only on a greatly magnified scale. 

Of few North American game animals does one meet, 
beyond the ocean with more conflicting accounts as to 
its habitat, and round none does there rest such a halo of 
romance and exaggeration. Not only is the Bighorn often 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn, 1 6 1 

confounded with the mountain goat, but many authors, 
from the earliest to the most recent, who are not expe- 
rienced " gunners/' delight in promulgating fabulous 
stories respecting it. 

The horns of the largest animals are of stupendous girth, 
and weigh as much as forty pounds. I was fortunate 
enough to bag, among the seventy or eighty Bighorn 
1 got, an uncommonly fine ram, each of his horns girthing 
nineteen inches at the base. It is, or rather was — for 
I lost this grand trophy by fire — one of the finest heads 
killed by European sportsmen, at least to judge from the 
measurements given by numerous reliable veterans, none 
of whom, so far as I know, shot any exceeding eighteen 
and a half inches.^ 

On another occasion I saw, and for twelve days followed, 
an old monster ram, whose horns were, if my eyes and glass 
did not deceive me very greatly, even larger than those of 
my master ram. Very severe weather made further pursuit 
impossible ; but, as I intend to look him up again in his 
desolate home, I may, if luck stands by me, finally succeed 
in bagging that wonderful pair — incomparably the largest 
I saw, and most probably ever shall see. He had been 
seen before on several occasions by hunters and trappers, 
two of whom I happened to meet, while a sound " threo- 
dayer^' confined us to our dug-out, at the base of the 
mountain chain which sheltered this patriarch. Not 
k rowing that he had been the centre of my ambition for 
the last fortnight, they very soon opened on the wonderful 
dimensions of this beast's horns, affirming, with the typical 
"Western love of romance, that they actually dragged on the 
ground, assuring me they had often seen the marks of the 
^ See Appendix : Bighorn. 

M 



1 62 Camps in the Rockies. 

horns on the snow on both sides of the animaPs tracks. 
An attempt to outcap this was the only way of effectually 
silencing these lovers of tall talk ; so, turning to my com- 
panion^ who was sitting at my side in front of the fire, I 
said, " Port, don't j^ou think that must be the very same 
Bighorn that we tracked ? you know, the big one that had 
sleigh runners tied to his horns, and a little wooden wheel 
on each of his hind legs ? I suppose the snow had got too 
deep for him." The twinkle in my companion's eye told 
me that would do ; and so it did, for I was no more bothered 
b3^romanceful hunters' stories. 

But to return to the quarry. The weight of a good five- 
year-old ram hardly exceeds 280 pounds or 300 pounds 
(Audubon mentions the weight of one as being 344-pounds), 
though you will often hear of 450 -pounders, statements 
which of course lack the authority of an Audubon. 
Amongst the wonderful stories of the Bighorn that are 
current, the most absurd is that of their pitching them- 
selves headlong down precipices, striking the sharp rocks 
with their horns, and thereby breaking their fall. Fremont 
(the great explorer) is alas ! one of the first to start this 
ridiculous rumour in the account of his travels (1842), 
when describing the " mountain goat,^^ as he calls the 
Bighorn. He says that "the use of those huge horns 
seems to be to protect the animal's head in pitching down 
precipices to avoid pursuing wolves.''^ How history does 
repeat herself ! De Saussure, whose career has many points 
of similarity with that of Fremont, says of the Swiss 
chamois, that "when pressed by foes, or driven to places 
from which they cannot escape, they will hang themselves 
to the rocks by the crook of tbeir horns, and thus perish." 
Mr. Bufus Sage, and all the rest of countless authors on 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn, 163 

the great West, follow suit, and I am sorry to say even an 
Englishman fell into this trap, repeating in his lately 
published work on Western travel this wondrous fable, 
mentioning as a proof the scaled and dented appearance of 
the horns. 

I haye never seen any large herds of Bighorn, about 
fifty or sixty being the most, notwithstanding the nu- 
merous stories afloat of bands of four or five hundred. 
The average number in a herd is very much less ; from 
six to ten or twelve being the most usual. Their rutting 
season is in November, and then the old rams, which keep 
aloof from the does and younger males for the rest of the 
year, come down from their solitudes and take the leader- 
ship of their family herd — a habit precisely similar to that 
of the ibex. The herd at this time of the year consists 
generally of three or four does with their young ones, now 
already half -grown, and a couple of two or three-year-old 
rams. The old ram will during this period be leader, 
watch, and gunrd ; herein again imitating the male ibex, 
who, in distinction to chamois — which have one and the 
same doe as leader all the year round — assumes the dut^ 
of the female and acts in that character during the rut- 
ting season. As I often used to watch herds for hours at 
a time, I became well acquainted with their peculiarities. 
One of the strangest is the friendly relationship existing 
between them and the mountain magpie— about the only 
bird you see or hear on the timberless barren mountains, 
which are the favourite home of the Eighorn. Small flocks 
of ten or fifteen birds will settle down on the backs of the 
grazing bighorns, and begin to pick away very busily at 
the minute larvae that infest the scrubby coat, two birds 
often being engaged on the same animal. I had never 

M 2 



164 Camps in the Rockies. 

heard of this before, but subsequently found that the 
so-called moose bird — a carrion bird, the size of a thrush 
— does precisely the same to the moose, ridding him of a 
species of tick. 

Bighorn are, with one exception only, at no time to be 
found elsewhere but on the roughest and most forbidding 
rock formation. That one exception occurs after rutting 
time, when the rams, in very poor condition, will wander 
from their crags to the level plain land, where the rich 
bunch grass helps to recuperate their strength. Especiall}'' 
if snow has fallen on the higher ground will they be 
found feeding, sometimes as much as a mile from the base 
of the next mountain chain. I often saw, in the month 
of December, small bands grazing in this manner ; but so 
watchful are they on these occasions — an old doe being 
constantly on guard duty on the most prominent knoll — ■ 
that it is most difficult to approach them within shot. 

Once, by a piece of singularly good luck, I was enabled 
to "run-'^ Bighorn on horseback, killing my ram with the 
six-shooter. Easy as this is with buffalo, elk, antelope, 
and even deer, it is, on account of the habits of the moun- 
tain game, a very rare instance of good fortune. Let me 
narrate how it happened : — 

On a fine December morning, the air delightfully crisp 
and invigoratingly light, I was skirting, on the look-out 
for game, a high sugarloaf- shaped " bluff,'* rising pre- 
cipitously from the perfectly level highland plateau across 
which we had been already travelling for two or three 
days. Peering cautiously round a sharp-profiled rocky 
buttress, I discovered, some 40 j^ards away, lying in 
the pleasantly warm sunshine, a small band of Bighorn. 
Dismounting, I ascended the rocks to a point of view from 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn, 165 

where I could overlook the terrain^ and soon had formed 
my plan of operation. The Bighorn^ who had not seen 
me, were grouped about nine hundred or a thousand yards 
from the main rocks, evidently their home — a perfectly 
level stretch of mauvaises terres intervening between them 
and the crags. Leaving all superfluous kit and my rifle 
at the base of the rock, I mounted m}^ po^W — no other 
than the fast Bessie mare — and made ready for a dash, 
which, as I had but 600 to their 900 yards, promised to 
be successful. Gripping my heavy Colt revolver, "^ whose 
shooting qualities I had brought, by experiments in the 
way of lightening the pull and changing the sights^ as 
well as by constant practice, to a fair state of perfection, 
and taking my mare well in hand, I galloped out from 
behind the big rocks that had hidden me. The first 
few yards brought me into full view of my game, who, 
dashing up and gazing for one second at the unwonted 
apparition, made, as I had anticipated, straight for the 
rocks. The race was a most exciting one. There was 
one fair head in the lot ; so, singling him out, I was 
close behind him when still about forty yards from the 
precipitously rising slope, where if he once got he would 
have been secure from further molestation. He did reach 
it, but with three -45 -calibre bullets out of my six shots 
in him, and these, though they did not bring him down 
on the spot, made him bite the dust before he had as- 
cended 100 3^ards. Rolling down the steep slope, the 

* I do not usually carry a revolver, it bein^ a most useless and 
cumbersome utensil for game ; but, in this instance, I happened to 
have one about me, as it was a short time after the last Ute outbreak 
(1879) ; and. though the site of the war was a considerable distance oj9P, 
small bands of the Utes had been horse-lifting in the neighbourhood. 



1 66 Camps i^i the Rockies, 

fine ram was Ij'ing dead at my feet, all within ten 
minutes of my first sighting him. I was not a little 
pleased with my success, and, next to those of my first 
om8, the horns, though not over-heavj?-, are the most 
prized in my little collection. 

The coat of the Bighorn is a dusky grey, varying in 
shade in different individuals ; the hair is coarse, crisp, and 
short, bearing a very great resemblance to that of the 
European ibex, not only in texture and colour, but also in 
the fine woolly undergrowth which in winter protects the 
animal against the great cold. At first the tyro finds it 
very difficult to see Bighorn, as the colour of their coat is 
in strange uniformity with the tint of the rock. Absurd 
as it sounds, I once shot, and frequently saw, reddish Big- 
horns, the dust of their native rock -blood-red as some 
of the so fantastically varied formations of the Rockies 
are — having given the coat a tint similar to its own. 

Bighorn are very cunning animals ; they will let the 
sportsman pass them a few paces ofi" and not budge, and, 
when he has turned his back, rise and make ofi'. Of this I 
very frequently convinced myself, till finally I got into the 
habit of filling my right pocket with pebbles, and throwing 
one or two wherever they could possibly be hidden under 
overhanging rocks or other shelter; my trouble being 
rewarded on several occasions by thus starting small bands 
of eight or ten heads, giving me capital opportunity to 
select the best. Their tenacity of life is very great. On 
two occasions I shot old rams too far back, my Express 
tearing big holes, visible at a considerable distance ofi"; 
snow was on the ground, and had it been any other 
animal we must have got them, for our camp-dog, though 
not regularly trained to it, followed up fresh tracks 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn. 167 

remarkably well. On both occasions we spent a wbole 
day vainly trying to get our victim, who carried good horns. 
Leading us circuits up and down endless and very steep 
slopes, they got away on both occasions by returning like 
the hare to the spot where they were put up, and from 
thence keeping to their old spoor, they finally left it where 
the ground was most broken and no snow, by one huge 
leap, down steep rocks, where their spoor was soon lost. 

My largest head, measuring when killed, as I have men- 
tioned, nineteen inches, rewarded a long, but perhaps 
the most interesting, stalk of my second expedition. 
The range the ram inhabited had been hunted previously 
by English sportsmen, and it was owing to this circum- 
stance that I heard of the existence of this uncommonly 
large one, who had hitherto outdodged his pursuers. The 
mountains were a mass of bad-land crags, of the most 
fantastic shape, with very little timber about them; the 
time, the latter part of November, and about six inches of 
snow covering the less precipitous slopes. My trapper, en- 
gaged with cayotes, had pitched camp in a sheltered grove 
of cotton-woods that skirted the banks of a little stream. 
An old " dug-out,^^ inhabited by him some years before, 
offered, when cleared of rubbish and the fireplace newly set, 
a capital retreat ; in fact, it was the snuggest camp I 
remember on that trip. Game, especially the graceful 
Mule-deer, was plentiful about us, but it did not take me 
long to perceive that thej^ had benefited by tbeir previous 
intercourse with white men, for they were shy, and evinced 
little of that innocent curiosity which unhunted game in 
those regions not unirequently betray. 

A buffalo-robe behind my saddle, my riicksack and 
saddle-bags filled with spare ammunition, bread, and a 



1 68 Ca^nps in the Rockies, 

frying-pan, and Boreas, the slow but sure-footed one, with 
the writer on his back, left camp for a two-days' stalk. 
I was determined to do my level best with the big 
ram, of whose existence I had received authentic informa- 
tion ; but the chief difficulty, of course, was to find my game 
in the gulches, canyons, and gloomy " pockets " of an 
extensive ridge. Fortunately, it was rutting-time, and 
the rams were now with the smaller fry, moving at this 
period over more ground than is their wont at other 
times. I discovered, in the course of the first forenooa, 
three or four different bands ; but my glass, and a stalk 
more or less protracted, bringing me in close proximity to 
them, showed me that my would-be prize was not among 
them. In the afternoon I was sitting on a prominent 
buttress of rock, examining the surrounding ground, all 
of the most broken and weirdly-shaped nature, when I 
discovered, some eight or nine hundred yards from me, 
a band. With my glass I saw they were on the move, 
grazing slowly along towards my resting-place. The wind 
being in my teeth, and the ground very unfavourable 
for an advance, I resolved to wait at the base of the 
crag for the approach of the Bighorn. Ventre a terrey 
I lay for more than an hour behind a stunted sagebrush 
about fifteen or eighteen inches high ; but no Bighorn 
appeared on my limited horizon. I was just about to rise, 
and had already let down the hammers of my Express, 
when, looking up, I saw, about twenty-five yards off, a 
monster head, staring in the most deliberate manner at the 
bush behind which I was now fairly a-tremble with buck 
fever ; for one glance at the huge horns, curving in graceful 
one-and-a-quarter turn, was sufficient to tell me I had the 
patriarch before me. 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn. 169 

The ram could not see me, but something or other must 
have roused his suspicion, for there he stood, his head just 
showing over the rocks, calmly staring towards me. The 
dense brush, through which I had made a peep-hole, 
seemed to grow scantier and smaller as minute after 
minute passed and the same rigid gaze was fixed upon me. 
My rifle, lying muzzle downwards, was at my side, per- 
fectly useless, however, under the ram^s suspicious 
scrutiny. How long this continued, I know not ; to me it 
seemed hours. A second and a third head — one of a doe, 
the other of a smaller ram — had showed up ; but evidently 
their senses were less keen than that of their leader, for 
they both withdrew, and a few minutes later I saw the 
herd, some forty in number, slowly file up a narrow ledge 
leading to yet higher ground. The sun was going down 
when the big ram began his tantalizing game, and now 
dusk was fast approaching, and I was thinking seriously 
of jumping up and taking my chance at a running shot, 
when the apparition vanished as suddenly and noiselessly 
as it had appeared. This faculty of stealing away, over 
ground where it would seem impossible to move one step 
without starting stones and making a noise, I had pre- 
viously observed, but never in such a high degree. At 
such moments the heavy animal seems to step with the 
velvety paws of a panther, and not a pebble rattles or a 
stone is displaced. 

The utter silence that reigned over the whole dreary, 
weirdly-grand landscape became, now that the nervous 
strain had ceased, more oppressive. What to do next was 
the question. The prize was too great to tempt any 
rashness. Out of three possibilities I knew not which 
had occurred. The ram, still on the watch, could either 



1 70 Camps in the Rockies, 

be behind the rocks that had hidden his approach/ or he 
could have followed the band, or, finally, he might have 
gone quite another course down the steep slope, where he 
would be lost to me in the dense timber of a deep gulch. 
Already it was too dark to shoot over a hundred yards 
with any certainty, and the rapid fall of night usual in 
those latitudes would make all shooting impossible before 
ten minutes had elapsed. From the very first I had given 
up all hope of returning to where I had left Boreas and 
my buffalo robe; so, as lying out was inevitable, I decided 
not to move that evening, but to stop where I was. 
Cautiously creeping down from my post of vantage, I 
found between two big rocks a sort of cavity, where, 
sheltered from the wind, I resolved to pass the night. A 
warm jersey, a pair of warm gloves, a small flask of whiskey, 
and a juicy elk tongue, with some bread — the two latter 
my '* iron store " — all carried in my rucksack, enabled me 
to pass the long hours of that night without enduring any 
very exceptional hardships; and I had ample time to 
compare the Old World past with the New World present, 
to review the pleasures of two November nights spent 
both at an altitude of at least 10,000 feet, the one on a 
bleak range of the Rocky Mountains, the other in a 
cavern in the Tyrol ese Alps, in which, some years before, 
a chamois-stalking fix had imprisoned me. 

I was right glad when break of day finally enabled me 
to stretch my cramped limbs. Substituting moccasins for 
my heavy hobnailed shoes, I was before long on the creep 
again. My first move was to ascertain if the ram was still 
in close proximity, and, having a lively remembrance of 
that long stern gaze, I preferred to ascend the crag from 
whence I had first observed the Bighorns, rather than 



Camps on the Trail of the' Bighorn, 171 

trust myself to tlie more convenient, but also more ex^ 
posed, hiding-place behind the sagebrush. A close 
examination of the ground proved resultless ; the ram was 
gone. Descending again, I made for the spot where he 
had appeared to me the previous evening. The snow lay 
in patches, and after a little trouble I managed to strike 
his tracks, which at once showed me that he had made for 
the higher ground. A toilsome ascent over the amazingly 
rough ground, covered as far as the eye could reach with 
huge blocks of rock, most of them bigger than a log 
shanty, thrown pell-mell together, parted by great 
cavernous chasms, fifteen to twenty feet deep, and too broad 
for me to leap them, obliged me to make great detours — 
while the nimbler game had traversed them with ease — and 
brought me finally to the ledge where I had last seen the 
band. Here the snow was in better condition for tracking, 
and I soon detected among numerous others the tracks of 
my ram, unmistakable on account of their size. The 
spoor was '^ clean,'^ showing, by the absence of little drifted 
crumbs of snow and ice, that it was but very recently 
made. The wind was rapidly rising, and the cold had 
numbed vn^ fingers, notwithstanding my warm sheepskin 
gloves, for the weather was evidently changing for the 
worse, and a "cold spell" threatening. A long and 
very cold creep along the ledge brought me in about 
half an hour to a gap of some five or six feet in breadth. 
The Bighorn had leaped it with ease, but to human skill 
it proved an insurmountable obstacle ; for not only was 
the ledge in this place hardly broader than two feet, 
but the precipice at my side was some hundred feet in 
depth, and the wind too high to make one^s footing very 
sure. Crouching back on ojy heels, I managed to turn, 



172 Camps in the Rockies, 

and retraced my hand-and-knee steps to tlie old starting- 
point, without having seen a living sign of my game. 

Knowing that Bighorn at this season feed very long in. 
the morning, I determined to try a low level, where the 
grass, so scanty that one hardly saw it, seemed a little 
more plentiful. Again a ledge was the only means of 
weathering the huge buttress of rock which shut out the 
view. This time it was broader, and ran right round the 
whole face of the precipice. In an hour I had gained the 
extremity, and, peering over the ledge, discovered the 
band directly below me, grazing at the foot of the precipice 
among a belt of low and stunted cedars. Lying on a 
rock, slightly ahead of the rest, was my ram, his head 
turned away from me, looking downwards. The distance 
was comparatively short, but the very high wind, blowing 
right across the course of the bullet, made the shot never- 
theless a riskful one. Crouching back, I took my time, 
examining the lay of the ground, which proved to me 
that, without making a detour of several hours, during 
which the band would most probably move away, I could 
not possibly get closer. Cautiously pushing my rifle 
forward, I prepared to chance the shot. To my left 
barrel, shooting a solid ball — in high wind much pre- 
ferable to the lighter Express bullet — devolved the honour 
of bagging this royal head, which it did most effectually, 
by breaking his backbone and piercing his body from the 
centre of the back to the foreshoulder. Instead of huddling 
together and gazing terror-stricken in the direction of the 
shot — as Bighorns which have not been hunted most 
usually do — the whole band dispersed very rapidly; so 
quick were their movements, in fact, that I had hardly 
time to get in my second shot at a yearling whom I wanted 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn, 1 73 

for immediate consumption, no warm food having passed my 
lips since I left camp. I missed him, however, the bullet 
tearing off a fragment of stone, which must have struck 
him, for he made a most comical goatlike side- jump. 

Impatient as I was to get down to my prize, I could not 
do so without making a considerable round, so I found it 
expedient to go back where trustworthy Boreas had been 
hobbled, in close proximity to a water-hole and good 
grazing. After three hours of hard work, I had brought 
him round to the base of the chain, and, leaving him 
there, ascended again to where the Bighorn lay. He was 
a glorious old fellow, and with my tape I measured and 
re-measured the horns for at least ten minutes. Few such 
heads are to be got, and the accident which subsequently 
deprived me of it destroyed a grand trophy of which I 
was exceedingly proud. After cooking and devouring 
the liver, I prepared to return home. Descending, the 
Rucksack came into requisition, for the head of a Big- 
horn is not only very heavy, but most awkward to carry, 
especially if any climbing, requiring the use of the hands, 
too, has to be done. Two extra straps round chest and 
waist, holding the head in the position most convenient 
and least dangerous for the bearer in case of falls, are 
essential helps on such occasions. It was growing dark 
when finally I was on my way home, Boreas picking his 
steps with wonderful surefootedness along the tortuous 
rock-strewn bottoms of deep gloomy canyons, through 
which our road lay. Long had the bright stars been shining, 
and the "dipper''' was beginning to slant, when finally 
a welcoming neigh of Boreas's favourite mate sounded 
through the frost-laden mist of night, and a few minutes 
later the fire, lighting up in picturesque brightness the 



174 Camps in the Rockies. 

interior of our primitive " dug out " home, no less tlian 
the genial voices of my companions, and the affectionate 
greeting of our faithful dog, ended one of my most inte- 
resting stalks after Bighorn. 

Speaking of measuring horns reminds me of a ludicrous 
misadventure defrauding me of a very fair head. I 
had sighted a lonely old ram roaming on some ugly 
mauvaise terres ground, rendering a stalk very ticklish 
work. A little perseverance, however, overcame the 
obstacle, and late in the afternoon I got my shot. The 
ram fell as if struck by lightning, a fortunate circum- 
stance, as he was standing on a very narrow ledge, 
overhanging a lofty precipice. The slightest struggle 
would have sent him headlong down the abyss, a fall 
which would have smashed his horns to splinters. 

When, by crawling along the narrow ledge, the only 
possible approach, I got to my quarry, he seemed as dead 
as a stone. Where he lay his body occupied the whole 
width of the ledge, his legs stretching over the narrow 
cornice of rock, while his hind-quarters lay towards me. 
Elated with my success, I was hotly eager to know the 
size of the head ; so, whipping out my tape-measure, and 
not noticing anything else, I stretched over the body, and 
using both hands, had succeeded in encircling one of the 
massive horns with the ribbon, when I suddenly felt 
myself heaved up ; and, before I had time to regain a 
kneeling position, the ram was on his legs, flinging me 
back like a feather. Luckily, he threw me so that I kept 
my equilibrium, a very slight sideways jerk would have 
sent me to kingdom come. My rifle I had left behind, at 
the place I had shot from ; and my knife I, of course, 
could not use, owing to the rapidity of the whole thing, 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn, 175 

and the precarious nature of the ground. The ram stood 
for half a minute, as if paralyzed, and then, with a rapid 
and very peculiar motion of his body, which I had neve? 
noticed before, made off along the ledge, my measuring- 
tape fluttering in a loose coil round his right horn. 
It would seem I had, in trapper parlance, *' creased '^ the 
ram, and hence his instantaneous fall, and equallj^ rapid 
"up and away" movement. 

What at first annoyed me most was the loss of the 
tape, as it was the only one in our '^ outfit," and I had 
frequent use for it. How to replace it was a puzzle, for 
in making another I had no standard inch or foot-rule to 
go by. At last a *' happy thought " struck me. My rifle 
barrels were, as I knew, exactly twenty-eight inches long, 
so nothing was easier than to turn them into standard 
inches of the realm, and, with this aid, manufacture out 
of the binding of my coat a new tape, which, on return- 
ing to civilized lands, months afterwards, I found to be 
quite correct. 

The 7nauvaises terres formation is often very favourable 
(or rather unfavourable) for a wholesale slaughter of these 
animals, especially if two or three tried hunters circumvent 
them from different sides, rendering impossible all escape 
from the narrow belt of rock, or small basin shut in by 
perpendicular walls. As their hides make the best buck- 
skin, a party of Indians or half-breeds, will slay — if 
favoured by luck — a whole band ; and even white hunters 
will occasionally be carried away to this extent. As, 
however, no game I am acquainted with so readily takes 
to heart the lessons taught it by its human pursuers, 
opportunities to butcher are rare, and only possible in 
Very out-of-the-way nooks, where Indians have never 



1^6 Camps in the Rockies, 

hunted. On the contrary, howeyer, it has often astonished 
me, how close to frontier settlements Bighorn will roam 
in winter, if they are not hunted or disturbed. I know, 
for instance, one place in Wyoming — an isolated chain 
of bad-land peaks, not more tban 7000 feet over sea- 
level, and only twelve miles from a settlement of im- 
portance, where, in December and January, Bighorn (no 
large heads) can be killed with certainty. 

An acquaintance, whom I happened to meet on the 
Union Pacific Express, on his return journey round the 
World, and to whom I disclosed the secret, sacrificed only 
three days, and, braving the Arctic cold, bagged his 
Bighorn in that time. But this is an exceptional case ; 
for usually it takes weeks, if not months, of travel to 
get to the autumn quarters of Bighorn, many shooting- 
parties I have heard of spending months in the moun- 
tains without even seeing the tracks of one. In summer. 
Bighorn are very hard to find, at least in those portions of 
the West I know; indeed from observations made during 
my last trip they seem to migrate during the hot months 
of the year to the highest and most inaccessible peaks. 
To judge from my experience, they descend to the bad- 
lands, their favourite autumn, winter, and spring ground, 
in September or October, after the first heavy snow- 
storm. 

In the Wind River chain there existed up to quite recent 
times, a very interesting and very little-known community 
of Indians, known as the '' Sheepeaters." ' They lived very 

* One hears, frequently, very wonderful tales about these Sheep- 
eaters ; one *' authority " affirming that they hybernated like hear, 
their "winter sleep" lasting through the winter. So far as I can 
learn, they lived only in the Wind E,iver and Gros Ventre country. 



Lamps 071 the Trail of the Bighorn. i "]"] 

high up on the great mountain Backbone, and their 
miserable dwellings, across which I frequently stumbled, 
prove that they constantly lived on or above Timberline, 
thus making the only known exception to the rule that the 
Indians of Korth America are anything but mountaineers. 
They had no horses^ and were the poorest of the poor. 
They subsisted, so I was informed by a half-breed, whose 
squaw was a daughter of this tribe, on deer and Bighorn, 
following the game in late autumn to the lower pasturages, 
They were very expert stalkers. They belonged to the 
great Snake Indian tribe, bat had their own chief, and 
had nothing in common with their Plains brethren, 
who, born in the saddle, deem it most derogatory to 
walk a siugle unnecessary step. Sheepeaters' " teeppees,^^ 
or lodges, are without exception the most miserable 
human dwellings I ever saw ; and, considering their 
very great altitude, consisting of loosel}^ piled-up stones, 
and lean-to roof of slender pine trunks, their inmates, 
wretchedly clad as they undoubtedly were, must have 
sufi'ered intense cold. In this chain they are occasionally 
found 800 or 1000 feet over Timberline. In some in- 
stances they must have carried the logs forming the roof 
up amazingly steep slopes. One hut I found on a name- 
less peak, also far above Timberline/ The majority were, 
however, just on the outskirts of timber vegetation, and 
here I have counted as many as fourteen very big skulls 

^ Mr. Langford, one of Professor Hayden's Government exploration 
party, who ascended the Great Teton, found on the very summit of an 
adjacent peak, at a height considerably over 13,000 feet, a circular 
enclosure six feet in diamel er, composed of granite shibs, set up end- 
wise, and about five feet in height, very similar to one I discovered at 
an altitude 2000 feet lower. 



178 Camps in the Rockies^ 

of Bigliorn, lying- about in a space not larger than a 
medium-sized room. To judge from this evidence, these 
Indians hunted only the ver}^ largest of the species. There 
are no Sheepeaters left. One of the last authentic records 
of them is furnished, I believe, in Captain Jones's report, 
to which we have already referred^ a Sheepeater acting 
as guide extricated him and his companions from the 
great forests, where he had got lost. A few of the last 
hucH of the tribe returned, so I was told^ to their original 
tribe, and became " reservation '' Indians, but I learn that 
they have ail died. Let us hope that their famous quarry 
will long survive them. 

One of the most singular experiences in my whole 
acquaintance with this noble game was the conclusive 
discovery that they are subject to scab. I had heard 
of it before, but my trapper, as well as several equally 
experienced mountaineers, never having come across this 
disease in Bighorn, ridiculed the idea. As it turned 
out, I was destined to become convinced of its truth in a 
most unpleasant manner. I had determined to send the 
whole carcass of a good specimen to Europe, and, in fact, 
had, before starting out, made the necessary arrangements 
with the Express Company of the Union Pacific, and with 
the agents of a large Transatlantic line of steamers, who 
were to berth the rare guest in the ice-hole on board ship ; 
and hence I had every hope of its reaching the Old World 
in a good condition. Our means of transportation being 
limited and already overtaxed by my collection of horns, 
I resolved on my return to civilization to wait till the last 
opportunity where Bighorn could be got. This was a day 
or two's ride from an Union Pacific station — a small 
Western townlet, where I intended to take the cars back 



Camps on the Trail of the Bighorn^ 1 79 

to New York. December was far advanced, and the 
weather just then very severe^ the thermometer being down 
to 26° and 30° below zero, and a gale blowing the whole 
time, making our camp, which was in the ruin of a log 
cabin, roof and one side missing, a very cold and uncom- 
fortable one. Bighorn there were plenty, as the nume- 
rous tracks in the snow showed, so I hoped to be 
able to kill my ram in the course of the next day or 
two. But chance, which had dealt so kindly with me the 
previous four or five months- — it was on my second trip — 
now forsook me. On the second day of our stay, a very 
bad three-day snowstorm — to which a mail-rider, who had 
stopped with us the first night, fell victim, having been 
surprised by it on a bleak^ entirely shelterless, alkaline 
desert — began, and only on the fourth day was it possible 
for me to stir out. The wind blew a blizzard, i.e. a 
hurricane, before which even log shanties were not safe, 
and continued so for the next eight daySj long after it 
had stopped snowing. 

Stalking under such circumstances on the bleak mountain 
sides was decidedly cold work ; but my heart was set on it, 
and I was determined to succeed. Had the hardships not 
been so great, the comical sides of my daily hunts would have 
counterbalanced much that was disagreeable, for ludicrous 
it certainly must have appeared to a looker-on to see me 
muffled up in a shaggy bufialo coat, wolfskins wrapped 
round my knees, creeping for hours at a time along the 
ledges and craggy heights of the peaks, the wind in exposed 
parts being so high that upright walking was not only 
quite impossible, but most dangerous ; finally, to get up 
to a band of my game as close often as thirty yards, for 
evidently they felt convinced that none but a maniac 

N 2 



i8o Camps in the Rockies, 

would molest them under prevailing circumstances^ and 
then miss them, as happened to me once, twice — nay, six 
or seven times successively. My favourite Express, out 
of condition by some hard knocks received in tumbles with 
my horse, shot, I was well aware, no longer true ; but the 
chief cause of my non- success was, I fancy, the high wind. 
At last, on the tenth day, I spotted a larger band, six 
or seven hundred yards off, snugly ensconced on a pro- 
jecting ledge, where they were sheltered as much as possible 
from the wind. It was terribly cold, and the effort of 
keeping my eyes open made the tears course down my 
cheeks, to turn into ice on their way ; and what with the 
dreadful wind and my trembling hands, I was an un- 
conscionable time about getting a better view of the band 
with my glass. When at last, resting both elbows on a 
ledge, and lying flat on the snow, I was successful, I was 
pleased by the discovery of a fine six or seven-year-old 
ram among the band. The opportunity was a good one, 
and this time I was successful — at least so far as to bring 
down my quarry, whom I managed to approach unob- 
served to within twenty yards. In high glee I crept up 
to the Bighorn, still struggling in the last agonies of 
death. I had already been somewhat mystified by ob- 
serving a patch of something detach itself as my bullet 
struck him ; but what was my astonishment to find on 
getting up to him, that the whole coat was one mass of 
scab of the worst kind, the skin actually hanging in 
patches round the shoulders. The poor animal was a mere 
skeleton, and no doubt would not have survived many 
weeks. I stuck mj^ knife into him, and found what flesh 
there was of a dark blue tinge, and of course entirely 
useless. I was so disgusted with my bad luck that I did 



Camps on the Trail of the Bigho^^n. 1 8 1 

not even secure the fine horns, but returned to our camp 
earlier than usual in no pleasant mood. 

Next day, Port — who, accustomed as he was to '^ dog- 
garned freaks " on my part, had nevertheless, I am 
afraid, given up all hope of seeing my scattered senses 
return — and I made a pack camp, i.e. only taking one 
horse, with blankets and some food, leaving the bulk in 
charge of the boy, to the next range, fifteen miles off ; 
and there on the first day we killed a very fair specimen, 
untouched by the fatal disease, to which most of the 
Bighorn on the other chain will probably have fallen 
victims by this time. It is an undisputed fact, that to 
the Indians this disease among their game was previous 
to the invasion of white men entirely unknown. 



1 82 Camps in the Rockies. 



CHAPTER YII. 



CAMPS ON TIMBERLINE. 



On the summit of the Great Divide— A snow humeane — Our fix- 
That pot of heans — Its effect— Finding the horses — Grand views 
— Fine weather — Walking on gold — How not to make soap — 
in dense timber — Difficulties of getting through. 

Ouu first acquaintance with the very summit of the great 
Continental backbone was a most agreeable one. We 
reached it on August 27th. The weather was superb — 
fine warm sunny days ; cold nights, when, after an honest 
day's exercise, it was the essence of luxury to get under 
our snug buffalo robes spread over a thick layer of 
springy pine boughs for a glorious night's rest. The 
atmosphere laden with sparkling oxygen, no less than the 
pleasure of having successfully surmounted manifold little 
hardships, and upon which we now looked back with the 
satisfaction of a schoolboy recalling the experience of 
those bad five minutes in the headmaster's study, put a 
very contented air upon our worldly affairs. 

It was glorious to roam about on this great broad 
ridge-pole of North America — now catching glimpses of 
the Southern slopes, then again of the great barren 
peaks of the Sierra Soshone to the North of us, which W6 



Camps on Timbe7dine, 183 

had quite recently left, glad to exchange the bizarre vol- 
canic wilderness of that region for the beautifully-tim- 
bered slopes of the main watershed on the Big Wind River 
Mountains. The first two days we camped at the lowest 
point on the range, where an old Indian trail crosses it ^ 
at an altitude of 9800 feet. But we were all too restless 
to stop long where everything was of the pleasantest. 
The long chain had to be explored, to the left and to the 
right of us. So, two days later, camp was struck, and, as 
trapper parlance has it, we "pulled out^'' for yet higher 
regions. 

We passed Timberline, and got on a bleak ridge, by 
which we hoped to reach another portion of the moun- 
tains, where, on the preceding day, from a high peak I 
had espied a beautiful " bunch" of little lakelets nestling 
under the beetling cKffs of one of the highest mountains 
of the chain. While following this barren ridge, when 
we were at an altitude of at least 11,000 feet, and from 
whence the whole vast extent of mountain country on 
both sides could be viewed as from the roof of the highest 
house in a town, we made the first acquaintance of a " real 
up-and-down Main Divide snow hurricane ;^' and though 
it was only (as our almanack — my diary, where careful 
track of days was kept — informed me) the 29th August, 
we had ears, noses, and fingers frostbitten, and ran a 
pretty " square '' chance, as Port acknowledged, of getting 
" rubbed out like so many darned cayotes.'^ It was an 
unpleasant experience, and as it will show the great 
extremes and amazing suddenness of changes to which 
the climate at these altitudes is liable, I may briefly 
sketch it. 

* Trails cross this range only at two points, eiglitj-five miles apait 



184 Camps m the Rockies, 

The day had been unusually wind-still, and a peculiar 
tinge of the sky had made us remark that it was just as 
well to get as soon as possible to the end of this barren 
backbone, where we could again gain the uppermost level 
of timber. But good and wise as our intentions were, 
they vanished very suddenly at the sight of a big she- 
grizzly with two cubs, whom I discovered quietly feeding 
half a mile off. Hobbles were clapped on to the feet of 
two of the packhorses, who were all left feeding on the 
short Alpine herbage, while we, after a brief consultation, 
scampered off as fast as our horses would take us, in pur- 
suit of the *' bar.''^ It was an exciting but, shameful to 
sa}^, fruitless hour's chase. All three, though very 
severely wounded, got off, for we had to open fire, on 
account of the barren ground, at considerable distance ; 
and instead of charging, as we had expected they would, 
they " sloped," the rest of our shots being put in in a more 
random way. 

When the chase commenced the sky was still bright, 
and it was so warm that we were riding in our shirt 
sleeves, notwithstanding that large patches of snow covered 
the steep Northern slope below us. When the chase was 
finished and we had again sobered down to everyday 
calmness, we found an astonishing change had occurred. 
The wind was howling, and the sky had assumed a most 
threatening look, an aspect of such savageness as I have 
rarely if ever seen. We had no goal in particular in 
view, and would have gone into camp there and then had 
we been near water and wood ; but timber was below us, 
and not a vestige of friendly creek or lake to be seen. 
Half an hour later the storm was upon us. The wind had 
rapidly increased to a hurricane, and the large flakes of 



Camps on Timber line. 185 

snow drove before it with an incredible force ; happily 
it was not hail^ for^ I am convinced had it been^ the terrified 
animals would have stampeded there and then. As it was, 
we had our hands full to keep them from doing so. The 
storm came from the North- West ; and as of course there 
was no possibility of getting the animals to face it, even 
had we been able or inclined to undertake such an ordeal 
ourselves, we were driven before it, as it happened, in the 
direction we were intending to go. The storm was 
rougher on us than on the horses, for we were still in our 
shirt sleeves ; and as there was no chance of halting the 
train and getting oiit coats and gloves — even had we been 
able to undo the pack ropes, that, first soaked through, had 
speedily turned into icy knots, which fingers even less 
benumbed than ours could not have untied — we had to 
proceed as we were. It was a critical hour that we 
passed driving bofore this snow hurricane. Our lives 
depended upon preventing a stampede, for once parted 
from our horses, and thus from the means of getting 
under some shelter and into warmer clothes, there would 
have been little doubt that the whole outfit would have 
been " rubbed out,'* as efiectuallj^ as any ever had been in 
consequence of a similar fix. With the " kitchen pony '' 
on the line, Port tried to lead the others, while we three 
guarded the flanks and rear. The snow came down in such 
dense masses, driving horizontally before the gale, that it 
had got quite dark. Often Port at the head of the little 
band of horses, twenty yards off", was perfectly invisible 
to me, who rode in the rear. We were all getting perfectly 
benumbed with the cold, for the wind had turned into icy 
blasts. Boreas proved himself a jewel, following, when 
my hands refused to hold the bridle any longer, and were 



1 86 Camps in the Rockies^ 

vainly prospecting for warm places about my - body, the 
pressure of ray knee, and behaving himself generally as a 
most intelligent old horse when any of the frightened 
pack-horses would make a frantic dash to one side, obliging 
the one nearest to follow at full speed and head the 
"break away" back. The wind seemed to grow colder 
ever}^ minute : everything about our persons turned into 
ice. Our scanty clothing was stiff, the rifles were coated 
with it, our hair and beards wore miniature icicles ; every- 
thing, in fact, under the influence of the hyperborean 
wind, had turned to gelid rigidness. 

How long that ride lasted none of us ever knew, and it 
was subsequently a frequent theme of amicable dispute. 
It was not quite " eternity less five minutes," and neither 
** all what a stem- winder ^ could do to record it,'^ as Edd 
and Henry said : but probably it was an hour and a half — 
an hour on the ridge, the remainder on the slopes — till we 
camped. The first intimation of the latter was Port's : 
*' Boys, I have struck water, and wood can^t be far/' It 
was a little bit of a trickling creek, and of the wood 
nothing as yet was visible. A halt was called, and amid 
the raging snowstorm we unpacked, by doing in one or two 
cases of refractory knots, what a Western man will only 
do in the direst extremity, namely, cut the lash ropes, for 
a ^Hash" with a knot in it is next to worthless, and we 
had hardly any spare ones with us. But none of us were 
in the humour to reprove the others for these outrages, 
for as poor Henry, whose shirt was especially tlnin in 
many places, expressed himself, he *'felt half gone up, 
and the other half was frozen.'^ So down the ** packs" 
came with incredible speed, and soon the snowy ground 
* Kemontoire wabches are called stem-winders in America. ^ 



Camps on Timber line, 187 

was littered with our houseliold goods. The horses were 
our chief anxiety. We could not possibly tie them up 01 
picket them, and we had only two pair of hobbles in the 
outfit. So, trusting as usual to luck, and hoping that 
they would not leave Wyoming by the shortest route, but 
rather seek the shelter of the nearest forest, we put the 
shackles on the two fattest, who were best able to with- 
stand the cold with less freedom of movement, and turned 
them out. They were off in a second, the hobbled ones 
following with ominous rapidity. Every one of us 
as two days afterwards we acknowledged to each other, 
thought, as we saw thein gallop off, that we had seen the 
last of " them thar horses ;" for under such circumstances 
animals will roam off for fifty and sixty miles ; but at the 
time we all kept our impressions to ourselves^ for none 
of us were, as the Western man expresses it, given to 
" borrow trouble." 

Sacrificing one of the three sailcloth bedcovers, which 
were very large and waterproof, we got all the bedding 
and the '* dry ^' packs under cover. The wind was far too 
high for us to raise the tent, even had our frost-benumbed 
hands been capable of accomplishing this. So, while two 
held the corners of the sail-cover, the other two got 
underneath, and in a kneeling position got at the *' Sara- 
togas^^ containing our spare clothes, and then, with the 
snow driving in on all sides, we stripped and got drv 
clothes and thick coats on our backs. Then only, while so 
engaged, were mutual remarks made, that noses and ears 
" looked cheesy," or in other words were frost-bitten ; so 
when the change of toilette had been effected, and we were 
returning the kind offices of the first who " sat down '' the 
dressing-room, we gave those troublesome facial members 



1 88 Camps in the Rockies » 

sound rubbings of snow. "With shaggy buflPalo coats, warm 
gloves, and thick overall trousers on us, the aspect of things 
improved considerably. Night was fast closing in, and there 
was no time to be lost in looking for wood. Following for 
some little time the tracks of the horses, whose instinct to 
find shelter in such cases is the very best guide, we 
presently came to the conclusion that we " didn't want a 
fire after all,'! or, in other words, that even did we find 
wood it would be impossible to make a fire in the high 
wind in the entirel}^ shelterless position our camp was in. 
With grim sneers at each other we agreed that this bright 
thought might have struck us before. On getting back 
to camp — not the easiest task, for the snow hurricane had 
not abated, and it was impossible to see further than ten 
or fifteen yards — three of us again held down the dress- 
ing-room, while Henry, the slimmest, crawled in and 
spread our robes, which, rolled up, had not got very wet. 
Two loaves of bread of the morning's baking, which 
most fortunately had not been eaten at the mid- day meal, 
were divided and taken to bed to be eaten at warmer 
leisure, while a good pull at the keg — it is on such occa- 
sions that spirits are really welcome — comforted the inner 
man. While Henry was " bed making " we contrived to 
fasten down the protecting sailcloth, by heaping all the 
saddles, pack-saddles, traps, and other such like weights, 
on the side exposed to the wind, and by using the pickaxe 
as an anchor. When everything was ready we crept into 
the narrow space, just sufficient to hold us and our rifles 
sardine-fashion, and after divesting ourselves of the outer 
garments, which had again become snow-drenched, we were 
soon snug and warm under the four or five buffalo robes and 
odd blankets ; while the two most miserable-looking dogs 



Camps 071 Timbe^dine. i8g 

you ever saw found a warm corner at our feet, where_, not- 
withstanding the grateful shelter, they continued to shiver 
for an unconscionable long time ; for^ as Port said, poor 
brutes they had to dry their shirts on their own backs. 

Notwithstanding the singular surroundings, we passed 
quite a comfortable night, far more so than many I have 
spent in the uplands of the Old or Kew World ; though it 
reminded me of one in particular, a cool December night 
I once passed on the floor of a deserted Alpine chalet, 
where not even hay was to be found, wedged in between 
two other shivering lumps of clay, the whole three covered 
by the heavy door of the hut, the only cover we could find, 
and which at least protected us against the snow that 
whirled about the partly roofless tenement. 

It was broad daylight when we awoke. Not having a 
serviceable watch, we were, when sun and stars were 
invisible, as on this occasion, in pleasant uncertainty as to 
the flight of time. The wind had gone down, but the 
snow was falling fast ; and when at last after a deal of 
mutual recriminations and courageous talk one of us had 
the moral fortitude to creep out of the snug lair, and peep 
out from underneath the tarpaulin, which lay heavy on 
us, it was found that snow lay already to considerable 
depth, and probably would be half a foot more by the 
evening, for there were no signs that the weather was 
" letting up.'^ We were very comfortable where we were. 
The pickaxe and shovel set on end served as miniature 
tentpoles, preventing the soaked canvas bedraggling our 
robes, and giving us breathing, and even smoking space. 
Had it not been for our inner persons the day would have 
passed not so disagreeably, though on account of the con- 
fined nature all evolutions, such as turning from one side 



IQO Camps in the Rockies, 

to another, bad to be done en riasse at the word of com- 
mand, and our lower extremities were getting somewhat 
cramped from the dead weight of the two dogs, who were 
constantly being turned over to the neighbours' feet. 
But, as I have hinted, hunger was the boss ; and presently 
hints began to be loosely thrown round that somebody had 
to get up. My proposal to keep the bed warm against 
their return was received with cynical applause, and un- 
pleasant allusions that if I did that they would eat against 
my feeling hungry — which sally seemed to them far more 
witty than it did to me. 

JSTobody stirred ; for an hour or so the assuaging effect 
of tobacco wrestled with that self-winding monster housed 
below our belts ; but it was only for a time. Then conver- 
sation took a more businesslike and less desperately witty 
turn. The contents of the kitchen pack was passed in 
mental survey. This review revealed the fact that there 
was a large pot full of beans, the last of the lot we got a 
month ago at the fort. These beans, housed in their iron 
pot, closed with a well-fitting lid, had been in a semi-boiled 
condition for the last four or five days ; for, as everybody 
knows who has ever tried to boil beans in the West, and 
particularly at high altitudes, it takes " a week to boil them, 
a fortnight to chew them, and eternity to digest them/' 
Our beans had been simmering over half a dozen fires, and 
still Henry, who had their management, adjudged them as 
unfit to eat, describing their hardness as making them 
fatal weapons in the hands of one who " kin heave a rock.''^ ^ 
After this we relapsed into silence, each busy with his own 
thoughts and with his own hunger. Mine took flight — 

The Western " boy " never says " throw a stone,'' but " throw," 
or " heave, a rock." 



Camps on Timber line. 1 9 1 

the former, alas ! not tlie latter — to more summerly 
regions. It was strange to think that on this blessed 
80th of August, while we were being slowly snowed up on 
the very top of the highest range in the ISTorthern E/Ocky 
Mountains, friends were probably enjoying delightful dips 
in the tepid waters of Longbranch or JSTewport, or even 
Coney Island, awakening the germ of a healthy lunch 
appetite — the very thought of which artificial means of 
building up one of your sluggish but civilized hungers 
bringing a sneer of superiority to my lips. Edd, who for 
a Western boy had a pronounced romantic vein in his 
composition, disturbed my cogitations by asking me if I 
knew who was the author of ^' Snow, the beautiful snow.^' 
He had once read it, and thought the writer of it *' a coon 
as was mad afore he was born." Port, and even Henry, 
had " heerd tell '^ of tliis depraved maniac, and indulged 
in tj^ical Western humour at his expense. According to 
them no torture of the Spanish Inquisition seemed adequate 
to punish that misguided genius for giving iaimortality to 
such idiotic sentiments. One of the proposed chastise- 
ments, decidedly the most original, was to make " the dog- 
gamed ink-slinging word-stringer boil that pot of beans 
till they were soft, and do it in his shirt-tail ; and make 
him swear on a stack of a certain book never to tell no 
one how long it took him'' — a fate that, under the cir- 
cumstances, seemed to me the essence of inhuman cruelty. 
JSTot so, however, to Henry, whose mind had a leaning 
towards the Indian's love for inventing exquisite tortures, 
for he added, " And, boys, by the jumping Moses, we'd 
make him sit in the snow and watch us eat them when 
the}^ rtr' soft.'' 

Whether it was the irresistible suggestiveness of the 



192 Camps in the Rockies. 

word *'eat," or whether the whole tone of conversation 
was becoming unbearably funny, I know not, but blankets 
and robes were suddenly thrown back, and after huddling 
on their extra clothing, my three companions made a 
start. The querry, " Coming along, boss ? '' made by 
Portj was tersely answered, "No, Til stay." '^You'll stay 
with the beans, you mean," equivocated he, who had 
rightly guessed certain dark hints thrown out by me. 

And I did stay with them ; for while the men in the 
waning afternoon light were absent hunting for wood, 
finally returning to camp after more than half an hour^s 
absence, each dragging behind him a dead tree, and after 
many ineffectual attempts, at last succeeded in lighting a 
fire, getting thoroughly soaked in doing so, I had inspected 
the bean-pot to some purpose. There is truth, I found, in 
the Western saying, ^'Beans is pison if you ain't 'forking' 
(riding) a bucking cayuse," that being about the only 
extraneous aid to digestion by which their very self- 
asserting deadweight can be subdued ; and this I speedily 
began to realize. Like a straining vessel with a shifting 
cargo labouring heavily in the troughs of the Atlantic, I 
tossed that blessed cargo of pebbles from side to side, and 
soon the bed seemed too small to hold the beans and me. 
It got worse, when presently the men, their appetites 
appeased by half-cooked venison and half-baked dough, 
returned to their quarters. 

When the 31st of August dawned, it was generally 
agreed that I had passed a restless night, that they had 
passed a restless night, and that decidedly the beans had, 
too, experienced a rough time. 

The forenoon was a dreary repetition of the preceding 
day, only that snow lay now up to our knees. Towards 



Camps on Timber line. 193 

noon, however, it began to clear, and the change for the 
better was as rapid as, two days before, it had been the 
other way. The snow was shovelled aside, the tent raised, 
and we all started to look for the horses. Hunting for 
strayed horses is a profound science, and life-long ex- 
perience had,' of course, made the men wonderful experts 
at it. If they were anywhere in the country we would 
recover them; and we did, for though the search that 
afternoon was unsuccessful. Port tracked them the follow- 
ing day to a glade in the forest comparatively close — not 
more than three or four miles off. 

A breeze had in the meanwhile sprung up whirling the 
snow about, rendering the atmosphere very thick, and not 
allowing us to see further than a couple of hundred yards or 
so. But it gradually subsided; the sun burst out, and in the 
latter part of the afternoon we had balmy autumn weather 
and sublime winter scenery, disclosing to us our surround- 
ings. But where were we ? Not fifty yards from the very 
summit of the ridge ! While the first trees grew a good 
many hundred feet below us, proving that while in the 
latter part of our wanderings before pitching camp we 
had imagined we were descending a gentle slope, we had 
kept on a level with the place when the storm first 
struck us ; indeed, if anything our camp was the higher 
of the two spots. The dead trees discovered by the men 
during the snowstorm when looking for wood, were the 
remains of a few advanced but stricken scouts of the 
main forest that lay below them. Only on ascending the 
insignificant slope did it strike us on what elevated 
spot we had weathered this summerly snow hurricane, 
for from it we saw both slopes of the giant range; and 
the dome-shaped summit of a great peak looked a mere 

o 



194 Camps in the Rookie's, 

higL. hill as in comj)aratively gentle slopes it rose from 
the main backbone. 

Two days after our release from, snowy bondage^ you 
could have seen me ascending the 800 or 1000 feet of the 
mountain near which we found ourselves camped. The 
sun shines warm and bright^ and the air seems keener 
and lighter than ever. From the top an immensely vast 
landscape is to be seen. Standing at my horse's side 
and leaning over his back, using the saddle as a desk, I 
sketch in brief myrioramic outline the landscape, for 
the peak is, on account of its isolated position, a remark- 
ably favourable point of view. Towards the north-west 
I can descry the steam from the nearest Yellowstone 
ge3'ser, eighty or ninety miles off, rising over a lower 
range of mountains. That is all I can see of the Yellow- 
stone region_, for immediately in front of me, trending 
Eastwards, there lies a vast sea of broken country, 
savagely hacked and torn by a maze of huge fissures and 
gloomy canj^on-l.ke valleys, from which rise an infinity 
of strangely-formed peaks and pinnacles. It is the weird 
Sierra Soshone — a great ocean, as Captain Jones says, of 
purgatorial wave- work, having the appearance as if Grod's 
wrath had rested longer on this sublime chaos than on 
most other spots. There is little timber about it, save on 
the lower elopes, thereby increasing the forbidding look 
of this upheaved sea. Far away, eighty miles from 
our point of view, we see rising from a broad mauvaises 
terres table-land a well-known trapper landmark, the 
fantastic-shaped cone called Orowheart Buttes, a mountain 
of grim history. On its height, a natural fortress impreg 
nable as no other natural formation I know of, some 
years ago eight Crow Indian warriors, deserted by their 



Camps on Timber line. 195 

comrades, retreated before an overwlielming force of Sioux 
foes. The latter, unable to get at them, drew a cordon ot 
watch-fires round their enemies' retreat, and starved thera 
out. On scaling the hill and finding them dead, the red- 
skinned fiends tore out the hearts of the brave eight, and 
devoured them there and then. 

The three rivers wbose headwaters take their rise on 
the slopes of the mountain I am on, are destined to be 
the three greatest rivers of the West, the smallest of 
which has a course of over 2000 miles, and drains 300,000 
square miles of country. One — ^the Big Wind River,"^ the 
chief confluent of the Upper Missouri — flows into the 
Atlantic; the Grosventre^ joins its waters with those of 
the world-renowned Columbia, increasing the volume 
of the ^Northern Pacific Ocean ; while the Green E/iver, 
or Colorado, sends its waters into the Gulf of Cali- 
fornia. Such is the maze of creeks, silvery little streaks 
peeping forth from the green sea of forest, that it is 
quite impossible to tell the ultimate goal of any one 
in particular, without following its course for many 
miles. 

There are spots on the Divide where the sources of two 
creeks — one flowing to the Atlantic, the other to the 
Pacific — are within rifle-shot of each other ; and on 
several occasions the morning's cofiee was made from 
Atlantic and Pacific water, not more than 200 yaids 
separating the springs. In a daj^'s travel in these 
regions you ^' fill your boots " again and again with both 
waters ; for often you have, while following the craggy 

^ It changes its name, and flows as the Bighorn into the Yellow- 
stone. 

• One of the headwaters of the Snake. 

o 2 



196 Camps in the Rockies, 

course of a creek, to ford it seven or eight times in half 
that number of hours. 

Indeed, I know of one, from an hydrographical stand- 
point most interesting spot^ where within an area of one 
square mile there are actually three creeks, each flowing 
into one or the other of the three great river systems ; while 
from a small lake on the very top of the ridge leading to the 
summit of Union Peak, there were, when I visited it in 
1880, two outlets, one at each end, both forming trickling 
creeks ; the one flowing down the Eastern slope being 
Atlantic, the other Pacific water — an instance, if not 
unique, though certainly of rare occurrence in potamology. 

Our vision is very extended : in the few places where 
intervening mountain chains do not obstruct the view the 
diameter of the circle we overlook is scarcely less than 
400 miles, perhaps more. To-day the country we see is 
decidedly the most secluded portion of the Rockies, for in 
those portions of the landscape over which our vision is 
unrestricted there is not a single white-man's settlement, 
and probably there were not more than half-a-dozen human 
beings, aside of Indians, abiding in it. 

As far as the eye can reach in a westerly direction — and 
in this atmosphere it will range over an amazing extent — 
vast forests greet the eye, from which at Timberline the 
giants of the chain, with their snowy entourage, rear their 
heads. There are no very boldly-shaped peaks among 
them. All are massive and huge as were they aware that 
they form the great backbone of the continental watershed. 
The highest of all, Premont's Peak, is eighty miles ofi".** 

There is a very singular feature to be noticed on the very 

« The latest surveys have " moved " this peak to a point consider- 
ably north of its site on the first maps of 1873. 



Camps on Timber line » 197 

summit of this watershed. For twenty miles on either side 
of our camp the slopes were covered by loose stones and 
gravel, known to miners as "ocean wash/' Of the in- 
separable companion of the adventurous frontiersman, the 
gold-pan,^ we had two examples with us, and they proved 
what had been told to us before, that we were walking on 
gold. Of the hundreds of pans my men *' washed out/^ none 
contained less than five or six, and a good many as much 
as twenty " colours," or fine flakes of the precious metal. 
Water in sufficient quantity handy, this forty-mile stretch 
would yield untold riches — which, alas, in the absence of 
that dne qua noUj must remain where they are, some 
11,000 feet over the busy bustling ant-hill, lapped by 
water that once dashed in unbroken rollers over these 
stupendous heights. (Jndoubtedly the whole district will 
be, in not too long a time, a great mining camp; but 
unlike a small one, that some years ago dug up, blasted, 
and washed a hillock we passed some time before, its 
members will probably not fall victims to the redskins' 
scalping-knives, as did the twenty odd old Forty-niners 
whose unwise intrepidity resulted in the loss of their 
hair — and lives. A few burnt logs, and a rusty gun-barrel 
or two, are all that remain of Ragtown, which is said to 
have been the most elevated mining camp of the day. 

7 Though this very simple utensil has been described hundreds of 
times, it is generally supposed to be a more elaborate machine. It is 
a flat bowl-shaped pan, remotely resembling a barber's dish, some 
eighteen inches in diameter. It must be held just right, and shaken in 
such a manner, by a half rotary, half rocking motion, that the water it 
contains, besides the sand (which is replenished every half minute or so), 
shall drift awa}' all the loose worthless stuff, and let the gold stay 
behind. The knack is to agitate the whole panful of water, and 
*' dirt " so as to allow the heavy gold to sink to the bottom. 



198 Camps in the Rockies, 

For nearly seven weeks tlie weather was all tliat could 
be desired ; each day seemed lovelier than th^ last ; con- 
firming the pleasant experience I had made the previous 
year, when from August to December we were travelling 
over less elevated ground, and not a single drop of rain fell, 
with the exception of two short though very terrific 
thunderstorms. This absence of moisture is a very enjoy- 
able feature, for it seems as if no exposure could injure 
your health. For myself I have never felt so well as 
when undergoing fairly rough hardships in the way of 
great cold and snow, while in autumn weather and bright 
winter days it is literally a pleasure to live.^ "In the latter 
half of September two short snowstorms surprised us — one 
m a sufficiently awkward position, for we had temporarily 
lost our way in an upland stretch of exceptionally dense 
timber, compelling us to camp there and then without 
any regard to the question of water, for fear our frightened 
horses — alarmed by the roar of the wind through the 
timber J and the frequent fall of dead trees, which come 
down with a startling report — should stampede and get 
lost ; for it is surprising how rapidly you lose sight of a 
straying horse in dense forest, and once lost to your view 
the chances are that in the vast woods the animal will 
remain so. As the position was sheltered we picketed the 
whole lot, and thirty-six hours afterwards were again on 
the way. On the day that we were snowbound in this 



^ According to the most reliable observations, which tally with my 
own experience, there are in Wyoming and Montana, on an average, 
from 290 to 310 perfectly fine sunny days per annum. Rather a 
contrast to the 178 days on which rain falls, and the 106 sunless or 
cloudy days (in an average of twenty-three years) in the valley of the 
Thames ! See Appendix. 



Camps on Timber line. 199 

place a ludicrous camp incident occurred to me, which 
raised general hilarity. We were running very short of 
soap, chiefly owing to the fact that some of our original 
stock was cached, together with some spare flour, at a point 
we could not reach in less than a week^s time. I decided 
therefore to manufacture some of that most necessary 
article, and was rather proud of the chance of showing 
the men that while they could and did teach me a lot of 
useful domestic arts, I would have an opportunity of 
teaching them something. My introduction, "You just 
watch and see me make soap ; its easy enough," was 
hardly needed, for they were all attention. So, while the 
snowstorm raged and the wind howled, I began my 
manipulation. But, as the sequel will show, the old adage 
that a little — in this ins^nce a very little — knowledge is 
worse than none, proved true. I fancied that I remem- 
bered to have once been taught that soap was made of 
tallow, lye, and lime ; but being neither a chemist nor a 
geologist, I committed the grave error of supposing that the 
alkaline earth of the usual bad-land formation, containing 
a large percentage of soda or alkali, would act as a sub- 
stitute for lime. After filling the camp kettle with lye of 
wood ashes, concentrated by several hours boiling, I began 
to mix it in the gold-pan with some elk tallow and alkaline 
earth, using my hands for this purpose. To my surprise 
the result was a sticky, tar-like, greasy, black mess, of the 
consistency of thick glue — in fact, anything but soap; and 
when I finally gave up the attempt, I found to my horror 
that the black stuff' coating my hands resisted all attempts 
to remove it. I tried every conceivable means to get it 
off", parboiling them in steaming water, rubbing them 
with gunpowder, salt, pitch from the trees, earth, ashes, 



200 Camps in the Rockies. 

steeping them till I could bear it no longer in the hot 
lye; bufc everything failed to remove the infernal tarry 
stuff from my hands. Even half a pint of precious whiskey 
was wasted in my vain endeavour to subdue the " bosses 
soap/' as of course it at 011013 was nicknamed. The men 
laughed till tears coursed down their cheeks ; and I threat- 
ened to try some of themj if they did not desist. Finally, 
just as I was getting fiercely desperate, a sudden thought 
— as the sequel will show, decidedly not a soapsud-den 
thought — crossed my brain ; it was to use " saleratus/' 
which we used instead of yeast powder for baldng 
bread. Henry put a lot in the washhand basin — ^^for of 
course, I could not touch anything while my hands were 
in the state they were in — and when it had dissolved in the 
hot water which he poured on the white powder, I pro- 
ceeded to steep them in it. It made matters not better, 
but worse. There was a distinct ^' fiz '^ on immersion ; 
and some wretched chemical process must have been 
enacted, for the stuff had concentrated itself to the 
consistency of melted indiarubber. For hours I sat 
in a most helpless manner on a snowbank, nursing my 
hands. They had the appearance of having been steeped 
in a pitcher of tar ; and as the men, not without some 
truth remarked, " that soap had indeed gone hack on 
the boss and funeralized him in the most all-fired 
deci-sivest manner;" while the idiotic young Henry, a 
propos of my taking root on that snowbank, began telling 
that old story of a i rentier maiden, who at a dance re- 
mained for a long time partnerless, and when finally some 
kind being did ask her for a turn, she electrified him by 
her '^ Yes, sir-ree, for I've sot and sot and sot till I have 
about tuk root."" Fortunately I was among Americans, 



Camps on Timber line, 201 

so I was spared the infliction of choice doggerel, where 
Tears and Pears^ and Soap and Soap (Western spelling) 
were impressed. To cut short a long day's misery — I had to 
sacrifice one of the two pairs of winter gloves I had with 
me, and draw them on, so as at least to be able to eat, and 
use my hands for the most necessary purposes. 

The next day I cut them off; and as the stuff had got 
dry, I managed with a blunt skinning-knife to scrape off 
the worst part, leaving my skin raw and sore ; but it took 
months to remove the last traces, indeed, not till I reached 
the Fort, and steeped them in some anti- soap- generating 
acid. It was altogether one of the few incidents that 
refused to yield a bright or useful side, except perhaps 
the one that it showed how not to make soap. 

In the stretches of dense timber the difficulties of travel 
were often of the most perplexing character ; and the two 
axes, handled in turns on those occasions, came in for con- 
stant exercise. Here my trophies in the shape of Wapiti 
antlers gave us endless trouble, for their length — exceed- 
ing six feet, including the skull bone — made a path of at 
least that width imperative, for the horns could of course 
only be roped down crossways on the horses' backs. 

Often we would get for hours helplessly corralled in a 
"windfall," into which, not unlike a maze, it v/as easier to 
enter than to find your way out. Here human patience 
was frequently sorely tested by brute perversity, for on 
such occasions the animals delighted in exhibiting all the 
meanness that was in them. 

In places the forests grew on steep slopes fuU of abrupt 
gullies and gorges, where some wonderful climbing up and 
slithering down of the horses was to be seen. On one such 
occasion I saw old John perform a roll^ or rather fall, down 



202 Camps in the Rockies, 

a steep slope that really approached the marvellous, not 
only because he was not instantly killed, but also on 
account that not a single tine of the two pair of huge Wapiti 
heads of which his load consisted, was injured. I have seen 
a good many wonderful performances of Western horses, 
many of which, were I to relate them, would be put down 
as '^ travellers' tales,'' but this special feat beat everything 
of the kind. 

The " kitchen pony " — the steadiest of the lot, bearing 
the hatterie de cuisine — is, of course, the one of whom most 
care is taken, indeed usually he is the only one that is led, 
the rest following. In parties such as ours he occupies the 
position of the cook in the travelling train of medieval 
lords. Mishap to him is the most serious thing that can 
befall the party ; and our anxiety on the occurrence of a 
stampede to know whether the " kitchen pony " was among 
the fugitives, reminded me of Brillat-Savarfn's excellent 
story of an Italian prince, who. when travelling over 
dangerous paths to his country-house, was accompanied 
by his Sicilian cook, a master of his art. At a dangerous 
point of the road, the prince, riding at the head of his long 
cavalcade, heard a shriek and the splash of a body falling 
into the torrent far below. With a face white with terror 
he pulled up, and looking back, exclaimed, '^The cook ! 
the cook ! Holy Virgin, the cook ! " "No, your excel- 
lency/' cried a voice from the rear; '^it is Don Prosdo- 
cimo ! " The prince heaved a sigh of profound relief. 
** Ah, only the chaplain ! " said he. " Heaven be 
thanked ! " 

Speaking of vast forests, it would be natural that I 
should also revert to getting lost in them. Few incidents 
of travel in strange countries have been treated with such 



Camps on Timber line, 203 

fantastical sensationalism as being lost. Let tliem be 
ever so exaggerated, they certainly do not speak well for 
the superiority of our civilization. Neither the rough 
and ignorant trapper nor the primitive Indian ever gets 
lost. Either muy lose their way, and be obliged to make 
unpleasant shifts fo^^ a night ; but one never hears of theii 
falling victims to such amazingly over- wrought terror as, 
it would appear, paralyzes the educated traveller. In 
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he has to thank nothing 
else but his own quite uncalled-for nervousness for the 
fix he has got into. The trapper or the Indian, when 
he loses his way in a fog or snowstorm, or at night, says, 
Indian no lost; Indian here; wigivam lost : and speedily acts 
upon this supposition by doing what is most sensible, 
namely, to await daylight, or the lifting of the fog, or 
the cessation of the storm, on or near the spot where he 
first became aware of the disagreeable fact that he has 
missed his way. 

Some people seem to have no eye at all for natural 
landmarks They see a peak one day, and the next they 
fail to recognize it. They ford rivers, and presently 
forget— if they ever did know — which way the water 
flowed. The sun and the stars are to them meaningless 
luminaries ; and they are weeks or months in the wilder- 
ness before they realize the signification of a watershed, 
or have noticed the direction from which the breeze 
blows. To such persons, of course, the plight appears 
decidedly more perplexing than to others who have paid a 
little attention to these rudimentary principles of wood- 
craft. But why even they should allow themselves to 
become a prey to fanciful deadly perils, is somewhat 
puzzling. 



204 Camps in the Rockies, 

Nothing is so exhausting as fright or terror ; and if 
the traveller bears in mind never to be without the means 
of making a fire, there is really nothing very terrifying in 
stopping out a night. It will probably be cold work, 
and as likely as not, hungry work ; but that, under all 
but the most exceptional cases, in the deptb of winter, 
will be tbe worst that can befall him. 

On several occasions localities were pointed out to me 
where sportsmen had got lost ; and more unh'bely places 
for a man to manage this I could not well fancy. The 
frontiersman is a sharp critic of such weaknesses ; and I 
have beard some unkind remarks made by them on this 
score. 



CHAPTEE \n[IL 

CAMPS IN THE TETON BASIN. 

A mythical Trapper's Paradise — Its locality — The Great Teton Peat- 
Its sublimity — The sportsman in the eyes of the frontiersman- 
Fishing notes, by a non-fisherman — Pleasant fishing — An unex- 
pected meeting — Wintering in the Basin — Partial ascent of the 
Teton — A night ramble — Scenery, its peculiarities. 

There are few spots in tlie Western mountain lands 
around wHcli there hangs so much frontier romance as 
about " Jackson's Hole," the trapper name for the Teton 
Basin. Few camp-fires in the wilds beyond the Missouri 
fail to thaw out of " oldest men " tales of that famous 
locality. "When an unprecedented trapping feat has to be 
located, that mountain- girt Eden will be chosen by the 
narrator. If an impossible Indian fight has to be fathered 
on to some quiet and out-of-the-way nook, the " bad man " 
who tells you the story will make " Jackson's Hole '' the 
bloody battlefield. If a great mining yarn goes the round, 
dealing with creeks paved with nuggets of gold, but to 
which somehow the first discoverer never could retrace his 
Bteps, the prospector invariably chooses for its site the 
Teton Basin. When I first became acquainted with the 
Land of the West, I had Teton Basin on the brain. 
Everybody seemed to have been there, or was going to 



2o6 Ca77tps in ike Rockies, 

visit it. And from the stories I heard, I soon came to 
the conclusion that it was, undoubtedly, an insufficiently- 
wonderful camp- fireside tale about that region that 
called down upon the narrator, a beginner in Western 
Troubadouring, the deserved and well-known reprimand, 
" Young man, young man, ain't you ashamed to talk so, 
when there are older liars on the ground ? " 

All kinds of great hunterfe made me their confidant,, and 
poured into my ears their personal experiences — how they 
had gone to the Teton Basin *'dead broke," and returned 
with gold dust leaking out of their torn boots^ and thirty 
horses doing their level best to pack all the beaver pelts 
along. ^^ Jackson's Hole " soon became, in my eyes^ a sort 
of beatified *^^home for destitute trappers.^^ And to judge 
by the numbers who had been there, the place was appa- 
rently of good size to hold all the old mountaineers 
domiciled in it — and what was strangest, apparently for no 
other earthly reason than for the pleasure of living in the 
Teton Basin ; for of course^ with legions of the best fur- 
hunters after them, the poor beavers had vanished to 
haunts less favoured bj^ those old, old — nay, the oldest 
trappers of the country, men who trapped the Cache la 
Foudre when Fremont was yet sucking his thumbs in the 
idleness of babyhood. 

I well remember how puzzled I was on my first accidental 
meeting with Port — whom, as he was pointed out tome as 
one of the best trappers of the country, I was rather 
surprised to meet 500 miles away from that spot — my stock 
question to all old trappers, ^'When are you going back to 
the Teton Basin? '' received the startling answer, " Never 
been there ; and I kinder reckon few white men have."" At 
the time I thought that was the very first " up-and-down " 



Camps in the Teton Basin. 207 

lie told me since crossing the Missouri ; but somehow, aa 
time went by, and the brilliant Paris green that coated my 
composition came off in big patches, I came to the conclusion 
that it was about the very first truth I had stumbled on. 

In the subsequent two expeditions with him through 
other portions of the Rocky Mountains, bringing me into 
camp-fireside contact with many would-be *^ old men of 
the mountains," my notebook gradually became filled with 
reliable information on different routes to that sequestered 
spot — and I certainly never knew a place have so many 
** best ways to get there." Singular to say, when, on our 
third and present outing, we made it our goal, the nearer 
we got to the spot the fewer grew the travellers who had 
spent either their youth, or their prime, or their old age 
in that trapper^s paradise ; and when finally, in July, 1880, 
we passed Fort "Washakie, the nearest post and the nearest 
human habitation to it ; we found that there was actually 
not a single person there who knew the way to it, or who 
had ever been there.^ An absent scout was said to have 
actually once visited it ; but he was away, and for the rest 
of the 180 or 200 miles across the Great Divide we were 
our own Teton Basin discoverers. 

A few words will suffice to indicate its locality. South- 
West of the Yellowstone Park, it lies on the boundarj^ of 
Wyoming and Idaho, between the Teton Hange and the 
Grosventre Mountains.^ Up to 1881 it was very difficult 
of access, being enclosed on all sides by mountain ranges 
that were very little known^ and could only be crossed at 
certain points, over which led Indian trails known only 
to a very few white men. But the wonderful tales of the 
qiiite exceptional natural beauty of the spot, circulated by 
* A positive fact* * See Appendix. 



2o8 Camps in the Rockies. 

the few who had visited it on their lonesome fur-hunting 
expeditions, had taken root, and spread in the remarkable 
manner already indicated. Up to 1879 only large, well- 
armed expeditions (the one Grovernment Exploration Party, 
under the renowned Professor Hayden, had touched it in 
1872), or trappers who^ by taking Indian wives, had 
become Indiauized, could venture to enter that country, for 
the two Indian tribes — the Nez Perces and Bannacks — 
whose hunting-grounds it was, were then very hostile. The 
Indian war of 1878 cleared them out, and when we visited 
the basin in 1880, we had the whole country to our- 
selves. With two exceptions, I saw not a single white 
man from the end of July to the end of November, and 
for three months of that period saw also no Indians. To- 
day access is made easier, for the narrow-gauge Montana 
line, branching off Northward at Ogden, passes Fort Hall, 
from whence Jackson's Hole can be reached from the 
West in seven or eight days' travel over Indian trails. 

We reached the confines of the Basin on a beautiful 
September morning. Debouching A^ery suddenly from a 
deep canyon, to a high knoll overlooking the whole of it, 
we happened to strike the most favourable point from 
whence to view the mountain- girt paradise spread out 
before us. 

At our feet lay the perfectly level expanse, about eight 
or ten miles broad, and five-and-twenty in length. 
Traversing the basin lengthwise, we saw the curves of the 
Snake River — its waters of a beautiful beryl green, and 
apparently as we viewed it, from a distance of five or six 
n^les, of glassy smoothness — winding its way through 
groves of stately old cottonwood-trees. A month or two 
before, the Snake had inundated the whole Basin, and the 



Camps in the Teton Basin, 209 

grass that had sprung up retained its bright green tint, 
giving the whole picture the air of a splendid trimly-kept 
old park. Beyond the river the eye espied several little 
lakes, nestling in forest-girt seclusion under the beetling 
cliffs of the boldest-shaped mountain I am acquainted 
with, i.e. the Grand Teton Peak,* rising in one great sweep 
from an amazingly serrated chain of aiguille-like crags 
sharply outlined against the heavens, and shutting in one 
entire half of the basin, — the other semicircular enclosure 
being the mountain range on which we stood. It was the 
most sublime scenery I have ever seen. 

Many of the Colorado mountains are called the 
Matterhorns of America — with about as much justification 
as the more diminutive Ben !Nevis, or Snowdon, merits 
that name. With the Teton it is, however, different; for 
it makes, so far as I know, the only and very brilliant ex- 
ception to the usual dome-like formation of the Rockies. 
In shape it is very like the Swiss master-peak ; but inas- 
much as the Western rival rises in one majestic sweep of 
7000 feet from this natural park, to an altitude all but 
the same (13,800 feet), I would, in this instance, in point 
of sublimity give the palm to the New W orld. 

Pursuing the hardly perceptible Indian trail (we came 

8 The Government Exploration party who visited, in 1872, the 
Teton Basin, and of whom three or four members ascended the great 
peak, re-christened it Mount Hayden, in honour of the well-known 
savant and indefatigable leader of the Territorial Exploration Expe- 
ditions. Though no peak in the United States is more worthy to 
jarry that distinguished name, it seems a pity — considering that hun- 
dreds of great mountains are still nameless — to rob the master peak 
^f its famous old name, the exact translation of its Indian appellation. 
The shape of the Teton is particularly striking when approaching it 
from the East, as we did. 



2IO Camps in the Rockies, 

along the Grosventre Creek) wliicli zigzagged down the 
steep slope, we soon reached the level bottom of the Basin, 
and shortly before sundown made^ in one of the exten- 
sive groves on the banks of the Snake, what, without 
exception was the most strikingly beautiful camp of 
my various trips. The immediate surroundings were of 
idyl-like charm. From the smooth sward, fresh, and 
singularly free of all rubbish, rose straight and massive 
the stately cottonwoods, their trunks of a silvery sheen, 
while festoons of creepers connected garland-like, often 
at great altitude, the upper branches of the trees that 
formed the grove. Immediately in front of us glided the 
broad river, its glassy surface broken here and there by a 
minute swirling eddy. Eight at the bank it was ten or 
twelve feet deep ; and great salmon trout, each spot 
discernible, hovered under the abrupt root work bank. 
Not a sound was audible, not a sign of living being was 
visible. The river was not broader than sixty yards, and 
trees as large as the ones that surrounded us dotted the 
opposite bank. Over this mass of brilliant verdure rose 
the Titanic Teton ; and did we not know that two miles 
of level ground intervened between us and the base, the 
clearness of the Western mountain air is so deceptive that 
the great Peak seemed to grow right out of the opposite 
grove. Bend your neck as far as you would, still your 
gaze seemed incapable of reaching the needle-shaped 
summit, and — similar to the old Californian miner, who 
when he first saw El Capitano, in the Yosemite, said it 
took two looks to get squarely to the top of the peak, 
with a chalk-line to mark off on the cliffs how far his first 
had got — the real sublimity of its height impressed itself 
only after the second or third look, notwithstanding that 



Camps in the Teton Basin, 211 

'TTatiire came to our aid by substituting a narrow belt of 
enow-fields half way up the mountain for the old Califor- 
nian's chalk-mark. 

For once^ as we all stood crowding the bank, feasting 
our eyes on the scene, I wished myself alone, to do homage 
to what I then_, and still, . consider the most striking 
landscape the eye of a painter ever dreamt of, by half 
an hour's examination more in keeping with the won- 
derful stillness which cast a further charm over it. For 
once, too, two of the unimpressionable Western characters 
round me gave vent to appreciative exclamations ; the 
third, however, young Henry — a hopelessly matter-of-fact 
being — turned sublimity into ridicule, by his ^' Darn the 
mountains ! Look at those beaver dams yonder.'^ Alas ! I 
have given up all hope to teach that young mind to 
admire; and I believe that were he suddenly introduced 
into Olympus, the only feeling that would move him 
would be expressed in a terse "Doggarn it, if I ain't 
forgotten the traps and the pison.'''' 

The following morning we crossed the Snake at one of 
the upper rapids,'' where two of us, and several of the 
horses, got sound duckings, and the dogs and one colt 
were swept down stream, amid considerable commotion, 
for quite a quarter of a mile. An hour^s ride across the 
level brought us to the banks of one of the two larger 
lakes I have spoken of, and where, as the sequel will 
show, I had some unique fishing. 

Let me say a few words on the topic of old Walton's 
gentle art in the Rockies. 

The light in which the Express-wielding Englishman, 

* Deep rivers are best crossed where there are shallows or rapids, if 
they are not deeper than will allow footing to the horses. 

p 2 



212 Camps in the Rockies, 

in quest of sport in the Far West, appears to the fron- 
tiersman, the rough- and-ready resident of those equally 
rough-and-ready regions, is sufficiently quizzical to esta- 
blish in their eyes our national claim to something more 
than oddity. Still more incomprehensible to the Western 
"boy^^ is, however, the Englishman who visits those 
districts for fishing, or, to use names by which that art is 
known to him, for lining^ poling, hug-hooking, and a 
series of other equally unflattering designations. Most 
English shooting parties visiting the United States for 
sport take back with them trophies of the chase, more or 
less numerous according to the means of transportation 
employed by them while out in the wilds. These heads, 
horns, and skins are at least something tangible ; and 
though the question frequently asked of me, ^* How much 
them ar' hides and headgear be worth over in the old 
parts," proved to me that it would be useless to try to 
dispel the deeply rooted suspicion that my much-treasured 
bear skins, wapiti, and bighorn heads were intended for 
vulgar sale and mart; they are nevertheless ^'something 
that shows,'^ something that in another world and among 
another people may possibly be worth a certain, if limited, 
number of dollars. 

Much worse does the fisherman fare who visits the 
semi-civilized home of those intensely practical roving 
forerunners of civilization. The fisherman, poor fellow, 
has nothing more tangible to take back to his home 
than pleasant recollections and an astonishingly big 
score, both about balancing each other for utter value- 
lessness in the frontiersman's eyes, both betraying, in his 
opinion, about the same degree of lunacy in a mild shape. 
No sane man, argues the free but dollar-hunting citizen 



Camps in the Teton Basin. 213 

of Uncle Sam^s empire, rich enougli to pay for the men, 
horses, and stores of the outfit, could possibly act so 
strangely ; leave his *' tony ^' house, discard the luxuries 
of civilization — " turning his back on whiskey,^^ is his own 
expressive phrase for similar conduct — put up with all 
the discomforts and hardships of camp life, which to him 
have of course long lost all charms ; and all this — after 
travelling five or six thousand miles, and spending enough 
money to start a silver-mine — for what ? To stand all day 
in water knee- deep and "line^^ fish ! 

So thinks the Western man while he gladly pockets the 
guide's fee, or the hire for the horses and mules that have 
carried you and your belongings to the scene of your 
big bags. His quizzical gaze rests upon your elaborate 
fishing-tackle; the five-guinea rod, or spy-glass pole, as I 
have heard it called, is to him as wonderful an instrument 
as your parchment book of flies, the pride of your art, is 
of mysterious use and purpose. Landing net, reel, and 
all the numerous etceteras usually to be found hovering 
about the person of Walton's disciples, are not less 
puzzling to him ; and when finally he sees you issue forth 
from your tent, arrayed in all the brand-new finery of 
your West-end outfitter, his mouth puckers up more than 
usually as he squirts from it a stream of tobacco juice. 
He will not say much, for the Western man is apt to keep 
his impressions to himself ; but he will think all the more. 
jETis fishing has been done in a difierent style. A change 
of diet becoming desirable, his ponderously heavy Sharp's 
rifle or the keen axe — its shape and make a chef-(f ceuvre 
of practicalness — is laid or flung aside, while the next 
patch of willows furnishes him with a rod, not as long or 
as straight as yours, but strong enough to handle a five- 



2 1 4 Camps in the Rockies, 

pound trout, or a lazier salmon of twice tliat weight. His 
line will not bifeak — of that we can be assured, for it is a 
very cable among lines, being fine-cut buckstring (cut 
from Indian-tanned buckhides) ; while the hook, fastened 
to one end by a knot nearly as big as a pea, is of home 
manufacture, old horseshoe nails, well hammered, being 
favourites for the purpose. For bait_, the Western fisher- 
man is never at a loss ; if a " bug " — all insects go by 
that name, grasshoppers and crickets being favourites — 
cannot be found, a piece of raw meat, the iris of the last 
deer he killed, or a minnow will do. If the time of day 
be propitious, the sky clear, and no ripple on the water 
(these conditions I have found to be of the greatest 
moment), the native angler will land in half an hour as 
many trout as he can convenienth^ carry. If bugs are 
scarce, he will cut thin long slices from the first fish he 
catches, the glittering scales being, after insect bait, the 
most deadly for the finny tribe. Often have I watched 
such fishing on lake, river, and creek. The gigantic hook, 
duly '^ spiked " with an equally huge green or black 
" hopper ^^ — both so large that I once wagered (and won) I 
could pick ofi" the bait with my rifle at a distance of thirty 
steps — splashes down into the circling eddy, and often 
before it has time to reach the bottom a two-pounder will 
be testing the strength of the buckskin line, which, if the 
" pole ^' does not give way, would hold a fish ten times 
his weight. 

I am no fisherman ; ^ in fact all the trout I had ever 

• With very few exceptions, good trout fishing can only be had on 
the Pacific slopes of the main chain of the Eocky Mountains; though 
I have frequently heard of English fishing parties visiting the different 
parks in Colorado, where, as I am told by one who knows, compara- 



Camps in the Teton Basin, 215 

can gilt up to that period could be easily stciwed away in 
tlie pockets of my shooting-coat ; so before I write any 
further, and betray my ignorance on some vital point, as I 
assuredly should, I am desirous of impressing this fact upon 
the reader. 

When leaving Europe I found that a light fishing-rod 
that had been knocking about my gun-room, unused for 
years, could be crammed into one of my rifle cases ; and 
passing down Oxford Street on the day preceding my de- 
parture, I favoured the owner of one of the many fishing- 
tackle-making emporiums in that thoroughfare with a 
general order to put up ten shillings^ worth of line and 
trout fly hooks.. This personage, more astonished I suppose 
at the nature than pleased by the meagre extent of my 
patronage, did so in the most business-like {i.e. prompt) 
manner, never deigning to lose a further word upon such 
a customer. 

I was glad of it at the time, for had he asked me any 
one of the ninety-nine questions regarding details — which 
I believe are necessary to define the exact nature of the fly 
you want — he would have been no doubt shocked beyond 
measure by the extent of my ignorance. Subsequent 
events, however, made me regret my carelessness in the 
selection of the tackle ; for my very first day's fishing de- 
monstrated to me in the most convincing manner that in 
my unskilful hands the line was far too light, the flies use- 
less, and the hjcks themselves hardly strong enough to 
hold a half pound trout. At a rough calculation that 
day's fishing cost me nine shillings and elevenpence worth 

tively poor sport rewards the traveller. Twenty-four hours' railway 
journey further West would enable them to get some of the finest trout 
fishing that can be hade 



2 1 6 Camps in the Rockies. 

of tackle ; for at tlie termination I found myself minus 
most of my Looks^ the greater part of my line, and the two 
top pieces (the spare one being one) of my rod snapped in 
two ; and of the countless fish that had risen to my bait, 
none landed but the very smallest. Fort Washakie, the 
last human habitation we had passed, was 180 or 200 miles 
east of us ; and where to get a fresh supply of line and 
hook nearer than that post, I knew not. 

Game just then was very scarce ; the Bighorn were still 
high up on the mountains, and Wapiti had not yet come 
into the Basin, so that we had been out of meat for one or 
two days ; and the long faces of my men when, on my re- 
turn to camp from my first day's fishing, I informed them 
that I had sacrificed nearly all my hooks and part of my 
rod, put a hungrj'- aspect on the matter, our " grub outfit " 
being then of the very lightest description. My pocket 
tool-box — a very essential commodity, as I found out, with- 
out which nobody ought to travel in those regions — had 
unfortunately been cached with some extra stores and the 
tent a week or so before, and hence we could not meta- 
morphose horseshoe nails, of which we had some few with 
us, into fishhooks. But the instinct of practical self-help, 
so strongly developed by Western travel, came to the 
rescue, and by the end of a couple of hours^ work, aided 
by the bright light of a huge camp-fire, we had completed 
three very deadly instruments. One was a landing net 
made of the top of a young pine-tree bent into a hoop, with 
an old flour sack laced to it with buckstring, half-a-dozen 
holes being cut in the canvas to let out the water. This 
was a triumph in itself; but what will the reader, who is 
probably an expert fisherman of long experience, say when 
he hears of the other two ? I had just six hooks left, and 



Camps in the Teto7t Basin, 217 

the broken top pieces of my rod (I must plead ignorance 
of the technical name of the component parts of a rod) fur- 
nished the necessary thin thread wire to make two hooks 
out of the six, by fastening three together, their points 
diyerging grapnel fashion. The torn pieces of line were 
carefully twisted into a stout hawser, the strength of which 
we tested by fastening it to the collar of a Newfoundland 
pup, and lifting him clear from the ground. 

The next day was a warm balmy September morning— 
not a cloud was to be seen in the sky of Alpine blueness. 
I returned to the same spot on the banks of the lake — the 
scene of the wholesale robbery of hooks on the preceding 
day, and on my way thither filled a small tin canister with 
**bugs" in the shape of remarkably lively crickets, of large 
size and jet black colour, that could be found in thousands 
on the open barrens. In an hour I had landed about forty 
pounds of trout, mostly fish about two pounds in weight. 
All the larger fish — and I must have had at least three 
times the number on or near my hook — broke away; while 
the very large ones— of which I saw quite a number, and 
some of which must have scaled six pounds or seven pounds 
— snapped up the bait ew jo«ssa/?^ in the most dexterous 
manner. 

My favourite spot for the sport was, as I have said, at 
the outlet of one of the lakes (Jennie's Lake it is called on 
the latest Government Survey map), and the time an hour 
or so before sunset, when, after a long day on the rocks 
and in the dense timber, I would have returned to my old 
horse and got on my way back to camp. Highly fan- 
tastical, not to say demented, must I have appeared to an 
Old World angler, as, wading old Boreas into the water 
where creek and lake joined till it reached to within a foot 



2 1 8 Camps in the Rockies, 

or so of the saddle, lie would stand perfectly motionless 
till I had filled the two capacious Stalker's bags slung one 
on each side of him with the speckled beauties.® Sitting 
well back in the saddle, with both legs dangling down on 
the same side, my rifle slung over my back — the landing 
net when not in use hung on one of my steed's ears, the 
only handy place for it — I plied my grapnel with never- 
failing success. Fish after fish, with hardly a quarter of 
a minute between, would gobble up the bait, generally still 
alive, and if the fish was not of large dimensions, would be 
jerked out of the water, and safely ensconced in the folds 
of the flour sack. 

As I have said, I usually began fishing '* an hour by 
sun " — the trapper expression for an hour before sunset — 
and, with only one exception, I succeeded in filling the 
two bags with twenty-five pounds or so of fish (while 
proper tackle would have accomplished it in a quarter of 
an hour or twenty minutes) before the long shadows of 
the tall pine-trees growing down to within two or three 
feet of the water's edge would fall across the smooth, 
glassy surface of the tranquil mountain tarn. The sun 
once ofi" the water, the fish would vanish as if by word of 

« Speaking of receptacles to place fisli in, one can often, if not pro- 
vided with sufficiently large bags, be placed in a dilemma concerning 
means of transportation. An experience in Port's life gives a useful 
hint. He once was fishing in the Columbia ; and when it was time to 
return to camp, he found that the empty flour-sacks, wherein to carry 
his fish, had been lost from his saddle, and nothing whatever at hand 
to take their place. But Port is a Western man ; so, divesting himself 
of his nether garments, he tied up the legs at the bottom and filled 
the whole with his fish, fastening the top in a similar manner; and 
seating the fish-filled unmentionables on his horse, in front of him, h« 
brought his take safely into camp. 



Camps in the Teton Basin, 2 1 9 

command, and I do not remember to liave caiigTit a single 
fish in tliat lake after sundown. Resuming my usual seat 
in the saddle — a signal well understood by trusty 
Boreas, and with a yelp of delight from the young 
Newfoundland, who, intensely interested in the whole pro- 
ceedings, would sit, all attention, on the bank fifteen or 
twenty yards oft', restrained only by my word from keeping 
up constant communication between me and the shore — I 
would turn my horse's head campward. Once, and only 
once, did serious disaster threaten me — it was when a more 
than commonly vigorous two-pounder snapped the threefold 
gut. But luck stood by me, and the second throw with 
my spare grapnel landed the very criminal, the hook still 
in his jaws. 

Has the reader ever eaten salmon trout (for I believe 
this is the proper name of the fish I caught in the 
Teton Basin) fried in bear fat, with a bit of beaver^s tail 
simmering alongside the pink mess? If he has not, I 
venture to say he knows not what makes a right royal 
dish. 

Three times a day did six big frying-pans full appear on 
our primitive greensward dinner- table, and never did fish 
taste nicer, and never did four men and two dogs eat more 
of them. Hardly credible as it sounds, thirty pounds a 
day was hardly sufficient to feed our six hungry mouths ; 
and when, towards the end of my short stay in the Basin, 
great economy in flour became imperative, forty pounds 
vanished in a similar wonderfully speedy manner. 

Two ludicrous little incidents happened to me in the 
Teton Basin; and though I took, to use Western parlance, 
a back-seat in both, I shall narrate them. The first one 
occurred in this way : I had filled an old tin to the brim 



220 Camps in the Rockies, 

with, hopper- bugs, and was crossing the outflow of the lake, 
seated, or rather crouching, on Boreas^s back, with legs 
tucked under me so as not to get them wet ; when right 
in the centre of tbe stream, with the water up to the saddle, 
my steed took it into his head to come to a dead halt. My 
impressive ** Git up ! " was in vain, and considering my ill- 
balanced position, and that my hands were filled with the 
*'pole," landing-net, rifle, and bug-tin, while the reins 
were hanging knotted over his neck, it was not the easiest 
thing to enforce these words by more active measures. 
Just below me was a large deep pool, and as Boreas had a 
wonderful faculty of doing the most unexpected things 
when left to his own free-will, I dreaded a dousing in the 
limpid depth at my side. Tucking my rifle under my left 
arm, clutching the rest of my outfit in the same hand, and 
the landing-net in my teeth, I began to belabour his 
plump back with the thing most handy, i.e. the bug- tin. 
Cue whack, two whacks, and with a click out flew the 
bottom of the canister, and for the next second it rained 
black bugs. Nearly all, of course, fell into the rapid- 
flowing stream, and the next instant were whirling for a 
brief second over the surface of the limpid pool. That 
moment, reader, I saw more fish than I had ever seen 
before or ever will see again. 

The other little mishap was quite as ludicrous. I must 
mention that these bugs are lively animals. They jump, 
dodge about, and creep out of your way with astonishing 
rapidity, and the only manner I could stalk them success- 
fully was to throw my limp felt hat at them with sufficient 
force to stun without squashing them. Even this requires 
some quickness and undivided attention. Well, one or 
two days preceding the above incident, I was out on my 



Camps in the Teton Basin, 221 

usual preliminary bug stalk ; and going along with bent 
form, now hitting, then again missing, my plump game, 
my whole attention being fixed upon my occupation, I 
reached a clump of dense service-berry bushes. I had 
just delivered a successful throw, and was about to stoop 
to gather in the prize, when out of the bushes, as if grow- 
ing from the earth, there rose — a grizzly. Rearing up on 
his hind legs, as they invariably do on being surprised, he 
stood, his head and half-opened jaws a foot and a half or 
two feet over my six foot of humanity, and hardly more 
than a yard between gigantic him and pigmy me. The 
reader will believe me when I say he looked the biggest 
grizzly I ever saw, or want to see, so close. It would be 
difficult to say who was the more astonished of the two, 
but I know very well who was the most frightened. My 
heart seemed all of a sudden to be in two places ; for had 
I not felt a big lump of it in my throat, I could have 
sworn it was leaking out at a big rent in the toes of my 
moccasins. 

Now grizzly shooting is a fine healthy sport — I know 
none I am fonder of; but there ought to be neighbouring 
trees to facilitate centralization to the rear^ and above all 
I must be handling my old *^ trail stopper " — and that 
moment I was here on a treeless barren, en face with one 
I " was not looking for,^'' or '' had not lost ;'' and yonder, 
100 yards off', lay that famous old rifle — Boreas in the 
distance putting some spare ground between him and 
that noxious intruder. Fortunately^ the Old Uncle of the 
Kockies had more than probably never had anything to 
do with human beings, for I saw vory plainly that he was 
more puzzled as to my identity than I was regarding his. 
His small, pig eyes were not very ferocious-looking, and 



222 Camps in the Rockies, 

first one, tlien tlie other, ear would move ; expressing, as 1 
interpreted it, more impatience than ill-feeling. I do not 
exactly remember wlio first moyed, but T do recollect that 
on looking back over my shoulder I saw the old gentleman 
actually running away from me ! On regaining possession 
of my rifle, which on this quite exceptional occasion I had 
allowed to get beyond my reach^ as it interfered with my 
" buggings,^' I felt considerably braver, and spent the rest 
of the day in a vain endeavour to resume our acquaintance- 
ship on more satisfactory terms. But the old gentleman 
evidently thought he had frightened me sufficiently, and 
so kept out of my way. 

This is not the only bear story I could tell, but as none 
have the slightest claim either to originality or sensational 
adventure, I will not weary the reader's patience with what 
has beeii told so often, namely, that grizzlies want no fooling. 

A very cursory examination of Jackson^s Hole ripened 
in us the determination of wintering in the basin, notwith- 
standing that we were quite alive to the fact that once a 
passage over the Main Divide was made impassable by the 
deep snows of winter,^ (we had twice to cross the great 
backbone at altitudes over ten and nearly eleven thousand 
feet,) escape from the basin was impossible for eight months, 
till the following July or August, for the two great rivers 
we had to cross are, on account of the melting snows, 
quite impassable during the spring. It was very fortunate 
that ultimately we were prevented executing this plan. I 

^ There is a considerably lower pass, if you approach from the 
north. As we were not at all acquainted with these densely timbered 
districts, it would hare been most unwise for us to risk getting lost, 
with the snowstorms of winter threatening us. Very different are 
they to those of autumn. 



Camps in the Teton Basin. 223 

Bubsequently lieard^ too, from a trapper — the only human 
being who, so far as I could learn^ had ever wintered in it — 
that owing to the sheltered position, enclosed on all sides 
by high mountains, and the altitude of the Basin itself 
(nearly 7000 feet), the snow remains lying, and is 
not blown off, as on the equally elevated plains^ by the 
high winds. He told me — and I have every reason to 
believe him, for we found sufficient evidences that snow 
lies there very deep — that for three months the roof of his 
log cabin was flush with the white pall, and that he fed 
his three pack animals with elk meat, and bark of the 
cottonwood-trees boiled to a pulp.^ 

We stayed for ten days in the Basin, and probably would 
have remained another fortnight had not a great forest 
fire, raging in the timbered regions north of us, the 
smoke of which we had seen for a week, threatened to 
ijivade the Basin, obliged us to leave it — with the intention, 
however, of returning a month or six weeks later. As it 
turned out this was not to be; and our winter ptilace, the site 
of which was duly selected, and the way to it blazed by 
me on the trees of the forest that shut it in, is yet to be 
built. Most annoying was one of the consequences 
entailed by the fire, namely, that I was prevented ascend- 
ing quite to the summit of the great Peak. On one of my 
expeditions after the mythical mountain goats — which I 
can assure sportsmen are not to be found on the Teton 
Bange, though on a chain about 120 miles north of it 

^ Dutch George — the name of this old pelt-hunter — was, as he always 
is, quite alone ; and when finally the snow on the mountains melted, 
the creeks and rivers were so high that he was imprisoned in his 
mountain-girt basin till the end of July. He had left the last settle- 
ment in the preceding September, and had not seen a single human 
being, not even an Indian, for more than ten months. 



224 Camps in the Rockies, 

they Ifiave been killed — I got within 1000 or 1100 feet 
of the top ; but the distance to the summit from our 
camp was too great to go and return in one day, and as no 
horses could be got further up than our camp, I decided 
to let the men help me to convey the necessary food, robes, 
&c., wherewith to pass a night or two close up to the 
summit. The men just then were very busy, and I 
unfortunately delayed the expedition from day to day, 
till the fire, running before a north-westerly breeze, and 
approaching us very rapidly, though yet several miles off, 
obliged us to leave the Basin by the way we had reached 
it. From the point which I reached on the main Peak, and 
from the top of a minor aiguille which I ascended, I could 
see what remained of the main ascent. Indeed had it not 
been so late that day, or had I been provided with some 
covering for the night, I would have proceeded there and 
then. And very sorry I am I did not, even without 
covering; the night I would have had to pass on the 
rocks would not have been the first in such a position. 
The remaining portion, as I had every chance to observe, 
was fairly easy for anybody trained to Alpine, and 
especially rock work. Many a second class peak in the 
Dolomites, though of lesser altitude, presents much graver 
obstacles than those that I saw on the uppermost portion 
of the Teton — the very formation of rock speaking for an 
easy ascent, while the snow was nowhere of exceptional 
steepness, and withal in perfect condition. In this 
respect I was rather disappointed, for the very bold 
outline of the whole mountain led me to expect a first 
class climb,^ though in point of distance the clearness ol 
the air led me to underestimate it. 
* See Appendix. 



Camps in the Teton Basin. 225 

One of the chief difBculties in exploring the Teton 
Range, are the immensely deep canyons that cut up the 
chain in detached blocks. The water in many cases has 
worn them down to the level of the basin, and they are 
often so narrow that you come upon them with startling 
abruptness, and look down yawning gorges two and three 
thousand feet deep, and at the top only half that width. 
They are undoubtedly finer than anything we have in the 
Alps. 

While in the Teton Basin we had a full moon, and if 
the reader cares to entrust himself to such a moonstruck 
individual, I shall ask him to accompany me on a quiet, 
after-supper stroll in the beauteous calm of night. Of the 
many nocturnal rambles I have enjoyed in the Rockies, 
the one in question stands out in pleasant relief, for the 
surroundings were exceptionally picturesque. 

Our camp, pitched on a great spur of the Teton Range, 
two or three thousand feet over the basin, commands an 
expansive view, and even the bright light of a huge post- 
prandial camp-fire can hardly outvie the brightness of 
night. About us there are half a dozen veteran spruce, 
so griarled and weather-beaten as to resemble that grand 
tree of the Tyrol, the arve, its branches festooned with 
wavy tresses of the grizzly " beard of the Alps." Supper, 
the pleasantest meal of the day, is over. The usual camp- 
fire conversation, dealing with recent events in our primi- 
tive travel, and mainly centring on sporting subjects, of 
Jate represented by my sorely disillusioned hopes of find- 
ing moose or mountain goats on the Teton Range — for the 
mountains were pictured to us by persons to whom even 
Port gave credence as harbouring great numbers of both 
species— has duly seasoned the meal. 

Q 



226 Camps in the Rockies. 

We have lingered longer than commonly over it, and 
as usual Henry has neglected to put the camp-kettle with 
the dish-washing water on the fire, so that when finally 
it is remembered, and the much- travelled pot is placed 
near the blaze, the circumstance is seized as a welcome 
excuse to lengthen that luxurious after- dinner £?o/ce /a'r 
niente, while another outrageously Western story, another 
hearty laugh, enliven our comfortable repose. A glance 
at the " dipper," for some months our only watch, for the 
two with which the outfit started have long been invalided, 
warns me that it is time to set out, for the constellation 
slants to nine o^clock, and there is half an hour's walk to 
the sight of my, or rather our, stalk. I say " stalk," for 
such a moonstruck ramble as we intend to take would 
seem the height of ridiculous sentimentality to the men, 
whose natures — good and fine fellows as they are — are 
of the genuine frontier stamp, i.e. up and down prac- 
tical and unimpressionable. To save appearances, it is 
therefore advisable to let on such occasions a stalk serve as 
an excuse for prolonged absence at strange hours. 

The rifle is taken as a matter of habit, for here you 
never let, or ought to let, it get beyond your arm's reach. 
You sleep with it under j-our saddle pillow ; when you 
fish, it is slung over your back; and in the same way that 
in many of the missionary churches in frontier-country 
the men stroll into church their rifle in their hand, you 
would, so accustomed do you get to handling j^our shooting- 
irons, very likely in a similar cdse do precisely the same, 
or only discover what you are about to do, as you are 
passing the doorstep. Not that I think there would be 
any special harm about it — certainly no more than there is 
in frantically gripping a tightlj^- rolled umbrella in the 



Camps in the Teton Basin, 227 

bellicose " Who are you ? " sort of fashion which distin- 
gidshes many a brave son of Albion, as with squared 
shoulders he strides into some peaceful Midlandshire church 
at home. 

So, with the old *^ trail stopper '^ over our shoulder, we 
stroll forth. A rise in ^he ground presently shuts out all 
view of camp, but 100 yards further on we again catch 
sight of the bright pile, and the dark shadowy forms 
hovering about it. To the uninitiated they would appear 
to be engaged in some m3^sterious heathen rite, for while 
one is kneeling on the ground with his face to the fire, his 
hands pressed to his breast, moving to and fro in silent in- 
cantation ; another is lying on his back, with one leg held 
up high in the air ; and the third is cutting mad capers 
in front of the blaze. We know better ; there is nothing 
at all mystical about it. The first is drying a tin camp- 
plate he has just washed, by pressing it against his bo^y 
and rubbing it with the cloth^ much as had he a mild 
pain below his belt ; the second is testing the strength of 
his evening^s handiwork, a new bridle, plaited of long 
strips of elkskin; while the third has very probably burnt 
his fingers when reaching for the camp-kettle standing 
near the fire. 

We follow the slope, dotted with great boulders, lead- 
ing us to a lower level, and presently reach a buttress of 
rock, from which en passant we see the Teton Basin 
stretched out at our feet — one or two little lakelets, and 
the silvery coils of the great river traversing the valley, 
reflecting the rays of the moon. We see the whole vast 
slope of the Teton chain on which we are ; for the spur juts 
far out, enabling us to view not only the mountains 
opposite, but also those that overshadow us. We see 

Q 2 



228 Camps in the Rockies, 

where great profound canyons cut down in the massive 
range, and form gorge-like fissures of extraordinary- 
abruptness and depth. 

Yonder dark streak, a few hundred feet over our heads, 
is Timberline. In gentle curves it follows the spurs and 
the smaller ravines that scar and fissure the face of the 
great chain. Beyond the plainly-marked band, much of 
the rock is mantled by a pall of glistening white, from 
which, in one great glorioas sweep, rises a huge black 
tooth, boldly outlined against the grey blue of the noc- 
turnal heavens. It is, as I need hardl}^ say, the Grand 
Teton. 

The outline of the landscape is of entirely Alpine 
character. Only in details does it difier. In daytime the 
searching glare of a brilliant sun, cloudless skies^ and a 
crystal atmosphere, give it a tinge of crude disharmony. 
Peaks do not float in the air, for, so to speak, there is no 
air that we can see or feel. The absence of moisture in the 
atmosphere, while it afibrds vision far greater play than 
in other mountainous landscape, is practically achromatic. 
The bold buttresses and pinnacles, their snow, their 
shadowy ravines, their gloomy canyons, are displayed 
with tantalizing precision and uncompromising hardness. 
There is no tender play of colour, no harmonious perspec- 
tive blending the near and the far. There are no great 
banks of airy silver-streaked billows to give depth to the 
picture, and to cast fairy shadows upon the mountain 
slopes; while the wondrous play of shifting light and 
shade caused by these fugitive exhalations — effects dear to 
the lover of European Alpine scenery —is sadly wanting. 
By moonlight these features of landscape beauty are no 
longer lacking. In autumn, when the days are warm and 



Camps in the Teton Basin. 229 

the nights very cold, filmy vapour not unfrequently rises 
after dark. The summits of the mountains rear their 
glittering heads from gauzy clouds of it^ while the subdued 
and silver}^ light of the brilliant moon is chary of invading 
the gorges and ravines. There is light, there is shade, 
there is tender perspective. The stark rocks and austerely 
colourless backgrounds are lost in mysterious half-dis- 
tances, and an air of tranquil, romantic beauty is cast over 
scenery, which at other times chills j^ou by its raw 
vastness. 

In viewing spacious panoramic landscape in America, 
one generally finds that the eye rarely encounters specific 
points about it that leave a lasting impression. When 
on some future occasion one endeavours to reconstruct 
the picture, it is far more puzzKng than had it been 
European Alpine scenery. The picturesque details about 
the latter, far more numerous and far more varied, can 
somehow, much more easily be remembered. 

We proceed on our stroll. Not the whole great mountain 
side is clothed in its primeval garb. In an hour's stroll we 
notice at least five or six more or less extensive expanses of 
timber, every one of different age. Fire, caused by light- 
ning, and windfalls, avalanches, and hurricanes have all 
been at work, and all have left their distinctive mark. We 
pass grassy slopes, dotted here and there with very old 
trees, gnarled and weatherbeaten, and not a few of crippled 
shape, which in days lt)ng past were spared by the snow 
avalanche that started from the heights above and swept 
away their brethren, leaving on its course Cyclopean 
boulders strewn about on the glade, and now as deeply 
inabedded in the soil as had they always been there. Our 
walk has brought us to the foot of walls of rock of vast 



230 Camps in the Rockies, 

height, for here the main chain falls off in one great 
precipice. Skirting along their base through occasional 
groves of spruce pines^ we presently reach the mouth of 
one of the canyons. Striking through the mountains at 
a right angle, it has cut the chain very nearly in two, and 
its perpendicular sides are quite 2000 feet in height. A 
small stream, ludicrously insignificant in comparison with 
the great gorge its waters have made for themselves, issues 
from the buttressed gateway. A colony of beaver, who 
generations ago made this spot their home, have, by 
building dams across the stream a few hundred yards 
lower down, turned a couple of acres of ground right at 
the mouth of the gorge into a beaver-meadow — a perfectly 
level expanse of velvety turf, as smooth and silken, and as 
brilliantly green, as some favoured lawn at home. We 
are standing a yard or two from the open space, in the 
deep shadow of some pines which encircle it on all sides 
save those w^here the abruptly-rising cliffs bound it. The 
glade-like beaver-ineadow is flooded by the broad mellow 
moonbeams that stream through the gigantic portals of 
the gorge as though it were an arched window in some 
ruined old abbey. On the glade move about a small 
band of Wapiti, the stags whistling their weird ^olian 
music, the hinds aud their more than half-grown progeny 
feasting on the juicy ^'aftermath" that invariabl}^ grows 
on the rich alluvial soil of these beaver-meadows, grasses 
that in hue and texture are very Unlike the rank herbage 
commonly to be found in elevated mountain regions. 
We stretch ourselves under the sweeping boughs of a great 
pine, and from there watch the family life, the occasional 
angry thrusts delivered by indignant master-stags in 
chastisement of some impudent youngster who has dared 



Camps in the Teton Basin, 231 

to approacli his hinds. Stags ramble off into the forest, 
and stags come — now approaching within ten yards of our 
hiding-place, then gradually fading away into luminous 
"Waldesduft,^' the poetic German name for the shrouding 
vapours of the forest. I^ot thirty yards from us there lie 
close together, two big antlers, shed probably last season, 
but already blanched to chalk-like whiteness. One of the 
stags, wandering idly over the glade^ presently comes up 
to them, and the lordly animal, for some reason or other 
displeased by these relics of his race, lowers his head, and 
catching up on his brow- tines one of the branching horns, 
weighing probably twenty pounds, tosses it like a feather, 
sending it crashing into the pine covert twenty yards off.^ 
The second horn he does not touch ; he has shown what he 
can do. Except the quaint call of him and his fellows — 
sounds for which there is little cause, for the fair ones 
they are so jealously guarding evince no intention of 
evading their masters^ endearments — save this, absolute 
stillness hushes the scene. The moon has topped the 
great chain, and no other light but that streaming through 
the vast rock- bound gateway of the gorge reaches the 
spot. IN'ever did forest scene breath more entrancing 
peacefulness. As we look up at the great orb, it seems as 
if she had shone from that spot for millions of years, and 
would continue for time evermore to touch up with silvery 
sheen the little glade and the group of stately animals 
dispersed over it. But, alas ! what a rude awakening 
awaits that family of Wapiti ! Where, less than two years 
ago, the nearest human habitation was ten or eleven days' 
ride off — longer than it takes the traveller from the Old 

* It is the only time I have seen Wapiti do this. 



232 Camps in the Rockies, 

World to reacli the New one — there will be, or perhaps there 
is already, a mining town, and Texas or Oregon steers will 
roam where, from time eternal, was the home of our antlered 
friends and of our favourites the indefatigable constructors 
of dams and beaver-meadows, while the ubiquitous cow- 
puncher or stock-raiser, who is turning the vast West 
into one huge cattle-yard, to the utter extermination of 
game, will replace the lonesome old " stags,^^ who with 
their Indian squaws passed many a profitable trapping 
season in this beautiful mountain retreat. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE BEAVER AND HIS CAMP. 

The bank and dam beaver — Their dwellings — The beaver's intelli- 
gence — Beaver timber — Trappers and their craft — Indians in- 
different trappers — Beaver towns, their aspect — Influences of the 
beaver upon the topography of the country'-. 

The trappers of tlie Worth- West define two species of 
beaver, distinguished from each other not so much by 
any individual characteristic as rather by the nature of 
their dwelling-pLices. They are the " bank " and the 
"dam^^ beaver. The former live in excavated caverns or 
nests in the banks of large and swift-flowing riversj where 
the current is too strongs and the spring rise too consider- 
able, to allow them to build dams. The entrance to their 
subterranean dwelling-places is effected by means of long 
burrow like channels from three to eight feet in length, 
stiirling upwards_, so that_, though the ingress hole be four 
or five feet under the surface, the nest itself is above water 
level, and perfectly dry. 

The *' dam beaver " lives, as the name indicates, in 
dams, or carefully built houses, generally of a round and 
somewhat conical shape, two and three families occupying 
frequently different tiers in one and the same house, which, 



234 Camps in ike Rockies, 

I understand, is never the case with, tlie other variety. Of 
the dozens of ^* bank beavers " the men 1 was with dug 
out, they never found more than one " set,''* or family, 
occupying the warmly padded nest. 

The houses of dam beavers are not difficult to examine, 
for they are above ground, and five or ten minutes' careful 
work will usually suffice to lay open the neat inside of the 
" wood pile '' structure. The number of inmates, as well 
as the size of these houses, varies considerably. Regarding 
the former point, my personal observation is numerically 
far behind that of other travellers. I have never seen, or 
had actual proof of, more than eight beaver living in the 
same tenement — a number far exceeded by others. The 
greatest number authentically recorded is, I believe, 
instanced by Hearne, in his narrative of exploration in 
the Hudson's Bay country, nearly a century ago, where 
he relates that the Indians of his party killed twelve 
old beaver and twenty-five young and half-grown ones 
out of one house, and he adds, it was found on examination 
that several others had escaped. The house was a very 
large* one, and had nearly a dozen apartments under one 
roof, which, with two exceptions, had no communication 
with each other, except by water, and were probably 
occupied by separate families. 

Not so easy is it to examine the dwellings of bank 
beaver, for during summer and autumn the entrance is 
several feet under water, and the nest itself can only be 
reached by digging down in trapper fashion — a process not 
conducive to a closer examination of the dwelling. In 
winter, however, when even the swiftest and most 
rebellious mountain torrents are laid in icy bands — at a 
period, too, when the water level is generally at its very 



The Beaver and his Camp. 235 

lowest — tlie entrance hole is not infrequenily half or 
entirely over the ice ; and on such occasions, if the burrow 
is shorthand perfectly straight, the explorer is able to 
squeeze himseK two or three feet up the passage, till, by 
the light of his candle held in front of him, a glimpse can 
be caught of the inside of the nest. Old dog beaver seem 
to care far less for the comfortable padding of their 
dwellings than do family beaver. On several occasions 
have I thus surprised solitary old males in their winter 
abodes, the frightened tenant, unable to escape, crouching 
in the furthest extremity of his bare and cold cavern, and 
eyeing me with his small and not particularly expressive 
eyes. 

The beaver is one of those animals whose instinct and 
intelligence have been most discussed aoiong naturalists. 
Cuvier, it is well known, used to demonstrate by a series 
of experiments with a beaver taken when quite young 
and arti6cia]ly suckled, that the admirable industry and 
intelligent appreciation of certain laws of nature evinced 
by the works of beavers spring from a blind mechanical 
force — pure instinct, unrelieved by the higher faculty. 
Cuvier fed his young prisoner with branches of willow, of 
which it ate all the bark, cutting up the peeled stems into 
pieces, piling them up in a corner of the cage as building 
material. He then provided it with earth, pebbles, and 
tree branches ; they were all used by the beaver in the 
manner peculiar to his species. " This,^' argues Cuvier, 
^' was blind instinct ; no good could result from the 
trouble which it gave itself, for it needed no house." 
Buffon's argument, that solitary though free beavers do 
not know how to construct dams, is refuted by Cuvier's 
young prisoner, who constructed and built his dams and 



236 Camps in the Rockies, 

dykes. Witli very few animals is it apparently so difficult 
to draw tlie line betiveen instinct and intelligence, or 
rather between instinctive intelligence and reflective 
intelligence, as in the beaver's case ? Intelligence is, as 
we know, deliberative, conditional, modifiable, and is the 
result of observation and preceding experience. The story 
of Mr. Broderip's pet beaver who manifested his building 
instincts by dragging together warming pans, sweeping- 
brushes, boots, and sticks, and piling them together 
crosswise, is, as we have authentic facts before us, a 
typical instance of this difficulty. 

The use of the beaver's tail as a trowel for plastering 
down their mud constructions has been frequently doubted, 
and the very isolated instances in which I found the marks 
of the scale-covered tail on dams or houses can hardly 
prove the contrary. More frequently have I found 
*' prints '^ of the tail on the slimy, mud-covered slides, for 
when in rej)ose the tail lies flat on the ground When at 
work gnawing down trees, the beaver seems to prop himself 
on his tail, though not to the extent pictures drawn by 
inventive pencils would pretend. 

If you surprise a beaver in deep water, he will commonly 
duck under, with a loud slap of his broad tail on the water. 
Indians and half-breeds believe this to be a well understood 
sign to alarm their comrades; but from the build of the 
animal, and the fact that he only makes this noise when 
in deep water, I am inclined to believe that it is a move- 
ment tending to expedite his disappearance. 

Another very popular myth endows the beaver's tail 
with a further uso, namely, as a medium for carrying sand 
and mud. Major Campion, in his '* On the Frontier,'' a 
work published a few years ago, says, — 



The Beaver and his Camp* 237 

"Nature has provided the beaver with a natural^ flexible 
trowel — his tail — and he uses it as such, making a mortar 
by puddling the earth of the banks of the stream, carrying 
it on his tail to where it is required, and then with it 
spreading and plastering the prepared mud just as a 
mason would apply his mortar with his trowel. Authority 
worthy of high respect says this is not so, is physically 
impossible ; but many times I have seen the unmistakable 
print of the beaver's tail on his mud-mortar/^ 

As far as my experience goes, I certainly have to differ 
from this opinion, for I have never seen anything of the 
kind ; and I should say that a glance at the beaver's ex- 
tremely short forelegs, and at his anatomical construction, 
makes it at once patent that it is quite impossible for him 
to place anything on his tail, aside of the further impossi- 
biKty of carrying such sand or mud on ir , were he indeed 
capable of twisting his body into the contortions implied 
by the writer. Of the very numerous fabulous stories of 
the beaver's activity, this is, I expect, one of the newest, 
for I have not found it in any of the older natural history 
works so much given to shed round the beaver's devoted 
head a halo of more than human intelligence. 

Even Indian lore, the history of untutored and barbarian 
aborigines, gives the beaver prominence for intelligence 
among animal creation. Indeed, accor*Hng to one source, 
this tail business would seem to be actual truth. I am 
alluding to Power's most interesting but very little known 
work on the Indian Aborigines of California. In it the 
author relates a myth of the creation of man and woman 
by the animals of the forest, vvhich is or was prevalent 
among the Miwok tribe. In it the following passage 
occurs : ** After the cayote had spoken, the beaver said he 



238 Camps in the Rockies. 

never heard such twaddle and nonsense in his life. No 
tail, indeed ! He would make a raan with a broad flat 
tail^ so he could haul mud and sand on it." 

Incredible as it sounds, there are people who believe 
that, beaver climb trees — a belief based on the fact that 
you frequently find the marks of their teeth high up on 
the trunks or stumps of trees, which they have gnawed 
down, of such height as would apparently furnish incon- 
testable proof of this circumstance. Rational examination 
at once shows us that such gnawing has been done in late 
autumn or early spring, when deep and crusted snow 
covered the ground, by the help of which beaver could 
gnaw trees eight feet or ten feet up the trunk. A similar 
instance is afforded by the height of beaver dams. 
Naturalists of past days claimed that beaver knew exactly 
how high creeks and streams inhabited by them would 
run when the spring freshets swelled their volume, basing 
their argument upon the circumstance that beaver dams 
were invariably neither too high nor too low, but always of 
just sufjcient altitude to allow the water to lap the topmost 
edge of their dyke. Nothing is easier to explain, if we 
remember that at the time these freshets occur the beaver 
is in the prime of his activity, and the proper level of his 
dam can be sustained very easily by tearing away or 
adding to its height — a circumstance borne out by the 
fact that you will find the uppermost portion of dams 
consist of timber shorn of its bark, the remains of the 
winter provender used for this practical purpose. 

Beaver are persecuted by man with a persistency from 
which few if any other animals have to suffer. Unfortu- 
nately man's preposterous selfishness comes into play, and 
two-thirds of the trappers do not scruple to trap out a 



The Beaver and his Camp, 239 

creek or a lake as completely as possible. This is a very- 
unwise 2)olicy ; for beayer^ if left; undisturbed^ multiply 
rapidly, one single pair repopulating a whole mountain 
stream in a decade. Beaver, moreover, are not very shy 
animals ; they do not shun man*s neighbourhood, as long 
as his Jiand is not turned against them. They often build 
in close vicinity to ranches and frontier settlements. As 
their work is chiefly done at night, they are not liable to 
be disturbed, and it is by no means unusual to find fresh 
beaver dams^ and other signs of their presence, where the 
baying of watchdogs and the shout of the lusty cowboys 
are heard day by day. 

That well-known, and I believe perfectly authentic, 
instance of Missouri beaver repeatedly building up a 
culvert through a railway embankment, made to drain off 
the water from a pond inhabited by them, is a striking 
proof of their sagacity ; for when the workmen persisted 
every other day in destroying the dam built by them 
during two nights to stop up the culvert, and so prevent 
their home pond being laid dry, they decided, with human 
intelligence, to build up the culvert no longer near the 
entrance, where their work could so easily be broken 
down, but to close the channel right in the centre of the 
drain, which was some fort}^ feet in length, well out of 
reach of the long poles used by the men to poke down 
their work. Here, then, was a beaver family actually at 
work with express trains thundering over their heads. 

Naturalists maintain that beaver observe no particular 
method in building their dykes. While not venturing to 
dispute this authoritative opinion,- 1 would desire to men- 
tion a curious and instructive instance which assuredly 
proves a certain amount of method. It was related to me 



240 Camps in the Rockies, 

quite recently by an EDglishman^ a well-known civil 
engineer in California, of large experience in all matters 
appertaining to the irrigation of land. A large English 
company had bought up a vast tract of land, bordered by 
the sea, in one of the centre counties of California. The 
land was considered perfectly valueless, the company pro- 
posing to make good grass-land of it by erecting sea 
dykes and damming a swift river, so that fresh water 
became available for irrigation. It was only after the 
purchase was concluded that it was found the whole sur- 
rounding country was peat, w^hich not only floated in 
water, but seemed of far too little substance wherewith to 
erect dams. Timber and stones were alike distant, and 
the transportation wholly out of the question. At this 
critical juncture, when the company's purchase capital 
appeared irretrievably lost, my informant was consulted. 
His opinion could not be different from that of the other 
engineers employed by the company, and the undertaking 
was about to be given up. He was riding homewards, 
following the course of the stream, when, some miles 
higher up its course, he came upon some men engaged in 
beaver trapping. Stopping at their camp for that nigbt, 
he learnt from his hosts that numerous beaver were to be 
found in the stream, and questioning them a little closer, 
he was told that they built their dams of peat. Examining 
next morning some beaver work, he found that the men 
had spoken the truth, and that dams of considerable 
strength, jutting out into the swift current, were con- 
structed solely of peat. From the trappers he then 
learnt what means these animals employed to make this 
substance retain a submerged position. It was by gradu- 
ally pushing out their dams into deep water, building 



The Beaver and his Camp, 241 

them mucli higlier over the surface of the water than they 
usually do with earth or timber, so that, while the weight 
of the unsubmerged peat kept the foundation work in its 
place, the angle of the " bulkhead,^' where it was swept 
by the current, was of the requisite steepness. Twelve 
hours^ examination made my informant very confident of 
ultimate success. He began his work amid the sneers of 
his incredulous fellow-engineers, and by strictly keeping 
to the constructive plan of the beaver he succeeded, and 
better than he had ever hoped, in making the whole under- 
taking such a great success that several companies have 
since been started with the same obj ect. He told me that the 
chief dam was 130 feet in width, and the locks by which 
the reservoir water was controlled, of sufficient capacity to 
float a small steamer ; and all were made of peat only. 

The teeth of the beaver, at least the four incisors or 
gnawers, are, as is well known, remarkable instances of 
the kind provisions made by nature. They are provided 
with an outer coating of excessively hard orange-coloured 
enamel, the core being of a much softer substance. The 
constant gnawing wears this latter down first, leaving the 
harder coating to form a gouge-like edge of amazing 
sharpness. A constant growth at the roots keeps up the 
length of the teeth, a circumstance which in isolated cases 
has ca"used death. For a beaver deprived of one of his 
incisors (they break them very frequently gnawing at the 
steel traps in which they are caught), and the absence of 
any check to the growth of the corresponding incisor, 
results in an abnormal growth which very soon mukes it 
impossible for the animal to feed. I found one old beaver 
skull with an incisor five inches long. From the shape of 
it, I should judge that the animal could hardly open its 



242 Camps in the Rockies, 

mouth— a fate whicli befell once a pet squirrel, obliging 
me to have it killed. 

There are very numerous traits in the beaver's activity 
that appear incompatible with the argument that only 
blind instinct moves the little workers. To watch two 
beavers at work gnawing down a big cotton wood -tree, 
three feet and a half in circumference — each worker 
keeping strictly to his side, the incision being made 
with perfect, one might say mathematical accuracy, so as 
to bring the tree in its final plunge to the very spot they 
want it, athwart a creek, or, as an additional protection to 
their dam, a foot or two on the upper side of it, where 
the danger from the swift current is greatest, is a sight 
which will probably convince even the most unbelieving. 
An experiment made on several different occasions by me 
tells its own tale. 

Coming, in the course of my rambles, upon quite fresh 
beaver work, say a moderately big cottonwood-tree five or 
six inches in diameter, standing on a slope, and partially 
cut through by them, I would put my shoulder to it, and, 
if possible, break it down, so that it fell up the slope in a 
direction opposite to that which the beaver evidently 
intended. Yisiting the spot the next day, or two days 
afterwards, the tree was invariably lugged round, with the 
top downhill or athwart the little creek, the foundation 
work probably of a new dam. 

Many a huge camp fire have we kept up day and night 
with old " beaver timber " — logs cut in lengths from 
twelve inches to twenty inches, and generally from six 
inches to fifteen inches in diameter. This beaver timber 
at first puzzled me a good deal ; apparently much too 
large for feed sticks, and too short and thick for building 



The Beaver and his Camp. 243 

purposes, I failed to find a reasonable explanation for it ; 
the only one that presented itself to me, namely, that 
the logs were the result of naughty-boy beavers of the 
destructive age of thirteen or fourteen, eager to sharpen 
their teeth, seemed too absurd. I^one of the trappers I 
interrogated on this matter could assign a reason, for they 
had never given the question a thought ; so I set about to 
discover it for myself by dint of careful watching. The 
first thing I did was to make mental notes regarding the 
condition of the ground in those places where beaver 
timber was found ; :^Dr its distribution was singularly 
uncertain, some localities abounding with it, while along 
other creeks where beavers lived we could find not a trace 
of it for days and weeks. I soon discovered that these 
short thick logs occurred only along creeks having level 
banks, where nature failed to aid their transportation by 
providing more or less steeply-inclined planes to roll down 
the trunks of trees. In fact I found them to occur mostly 
where no large trees grew close to the creek the home of 
the sturdy woodcutters, and where patches of dense shrub 
and cottonwoods flourished at some little distance from 
the waterside. 

Soon after making this dis\''overy I passed a very bright 
October moonlight night, waiching, as I often did, for a 
grizzly, in a copse of this description. I was perched in 
the fork of a good-sized, leafless cottonwood, at the base 
of which lay the carcass of a white-tail deer, the bait 
intended to attract bruin, and near which, a day or two 
before, he had first cached and then devoured a similar 
honne houche, provided for him by my rifle. With my 
hand-axe I had made myself a comfortable seat, carefully 
concealing the shining barrels of my rifle — a very neces* 

R 2 



244 Camps in the Rockies. 

sary, but often neglected precaution, where wary beasts of 
prey, never more wary than when approaching a cache or a 
bait, are concerned. The calm, glorious evening had 
long merged into the peaceful tranquillity of a moonlight 
landscape, my pocket literature enabling me to while 
away the time, when a noise of breaking twigs attracted 
my attention, and made me " grab '^ the Express con- 
cealed under my coat. The disturbance, however, was not 
caused by my expected bear, but by old friends, a tardy 
family of beavers, about to begin, somewhat later than 
usual, their nocturnal " cutting/'' On this occasion, and 
only on this one, have I watched the production of these 
logs, which, with the bark left on, were cut from trees 
previously gnawed down, the entire trunk being far too 
heavy for the beaver to move or turn on level ground, 
while the single pieces could be pushed along with per- 
fect ease. 

It was an interesting sight to watch the old pater 
familias set to work on a previously felled trunk, soon 
followed by several more youthful labourers, scions pro- 
bably of the diligent foreman of the works. With amazing 
energy their sharp, ever-keen gnawing tools plied through 
the wood, the shavings in width corresponding to the 
breadth of the gouge shaped edge of their teeth, now and 
again jerked aside with a comic vicious-looking toss of the 
bullet-shaped head. Unfortunately, not having a watch, 
I was unable to time the speed with which the logs were 
cut. I should say that halt au hour amply covered the 
period occupied in cutting one log of about ten inches in 
diameter. While standing trees are gnawed round the 
circumference from nine inches to fifteen inches from the 
ground, the deepest cutting being done on the side towards 



The Beaver and his Camp, 245 

whicli the tree is to fall, felled trunks too heavy to turn 
over offer more difficulties, the greater portion of the 
gnawing having to be done from the uppermost side ; 
hence also it is easy to know, by the surface of the cut^ 
whether a tree has been worked on while standings or 
when prostrated on the ground. These logs supply^ I am 
inclined to think, a twofold want ; for not only is the bark 
welcome winter provender, but their bulky nature makes 
them good building material wherewith to dam up the 
base of a dyke. I have found them in many instances 
built up in the lower submerged part of big dams torn 
down by ruthless trapper hands, and where, in the original 
condition of the dyke, they could not be seen.^ 

While all, or very nearly all, old beaver-timber is 
peeled, most of it betrays, when found on dry land, its 
having been once submerged for a considerable period. 
The fact that the logs are found on dry ground, often some 
distance from the next creek, is easily explained, if we 
remember that the high water of spring time uproots 
many a beaver dam, drifting the logs, and also smaller 
building material, all over the surrounding level stretches 
of country. The few isolated instances of beaver timber 
with the bark on, and which had never been exposed to 
water, are, as I had occasion to see on my last trip, the 
result of cutting down felled trees to a certain length, so 

* One of Professor Hayden's scientific assistants in the Second 
Survey party of the Territories has published in the American 
Naturalist some interesting notes on beavers. The beaver timber- 
logs of which I have just spoken seemed to have puzzled him, though 
he makes a happy guess at their use when he says, " They are 
probably prepared with the intention of filling up chinks in the walls 
of dams," no actual proof of this, however, being furnished by the 
writer. 



246 Camps in the Rockies. 

as just to span the creek or fit tlie outlet of a pool, for 
which, desirable end the trunks were originally gnawed 
down. 

Beavers live chiefly on the bark of their favourite trees, 
at least during the open season. But it is unquestionable 
that they subsist also on wood, it having been found on dis- 
section that their stomachs were filled with lignine with no 
perceptible remains of bark, and the contents of the caecum 
disclosing the same fact, the digestive process simply 
removing the saccharine from the wood. The frequent 
absence of chips at the foot of trees freshly gnawed by 
beavers speaks also for this fact. 

Regarding the altitude at which beavers live, it seems 
wholly governed by the presence of their favourite trees 
and shrubs. In the Big Wind River Mountains I found 
families peopling some of the small lakes at an altitude 
of over 9000 or 10,000 feet. Many of the lakes, how- 
ever, had no willows or asps about them, and there 
also no beavers would be. I was unable to determine 
whether beavers remained at such extreme heights during 
the long winter months, or whether they migrated down 
the creeks into the bigger valleys 2000 or 3000 feet 
lower. Trappers appear to favour the latter theory. That 
beavers winter at 8000 or 9000 feet over sea level is an 
undisputed fact, of which I convinced myself personally, 
for I found them inhabiting their snug houses at that 
altitude in the month of December. 

Autumn brings a full complement of work for our little 
workers. The winter house or the nest in the bank has 
to be repaired — the first replastered with mud, which on 
becoming hard shields the inmates effectually against 
the attacks of hungry wolves; the latter padded with 



The Beaver and his Camp, 247 

moss. Then the winter provender has to be collected in 
the shape of feed-sticks — pieces of cotton wood, willow, or 
ash saplings, from nine to twelve inches in length, of 
which the bark is the favourite food. These are stacked 
up under water, generally at the foot of the nearest dam, 
or in the case of bank beaver are taken right into their 
subterranean caverns. Some of the old- bachelor beavers, 
who, not unlike very old stags or bull buffaloes, stray from 
their fellows, and go roaming about the country, seem 
strangely improvident concerning their winter supplies. 

Most trappers believe implicitly in their victims' 
proficiency as weather clerks ; if beavers collect their 
feed-sticks early, winter is close at hand, and vice versa. 
On the two occasions when I have been able to watch this, 
it certainly turned out correct. 

Beaver, in countries where their favourite quaking-asp 
and Cottonwood- trees flourish, very rarely touch the lesinous 
evergreens of the forest, whether for feeding or for building 
purposes. In one or two localities I found cedar-trees of 
medium growth gnawed down ; but it was impossible to 
tell whether they had done this in the extremities of 
hunger or simpl}^ to clear their path. Never having come 
upon fresh cedar cuttings, I cannot account for it with any 
degree of certainty. 

In Oregon, however, the animal appears to evince a less 
marked partiality. Dr. Newberry, in his ^' Zoology of 
Oregon,^' states that in the Cascade Mountains, in that 
Territory (a range not visited by me), *' whole groves of 
young pine-trees are cut down within a few inches of the 

ground, and carried off bodily The largest stump 

I noticed was a spruce pine twelve inches in diameter." 
There is a possibility that the evergreen trees observed 



248 Camps in the Rockies, 

by Dr. Newberry were cut down by the beavers to obtain 
the nutritious mosses, which grow upon certain species 
of evergreen trees in Oregon in great profusion. This 
vegetable parasite is collected by the Indians, and cooked 
or baked in much the same way they prepare their 
" kamash,^^ a sort of moss glue being thus obtained, which 
is said to be both palatable and nutritious. Certain it is 
that while beaver on the Atlantic slopes of the Bocky 
Mountains and the Eastern lake districts never touch 
evergreen trees, those on the Pacific slope apparently 
sometimes make an exception. Most of the trappers of 
experience whom I took occasion to interrogate concerning 
Oregon beaver, told me that occasionallj^ they came across 
instances of spruce, tamarack^ or any other resinous ever- 
green, showing beaver signs. Dr. Newberry's experience 
may have been exceptional. 

Beavers migrate, and for two reasons, dearth of the willow 
brush and cottonwood-trees, which are their means of subsis- 
tence, and constant persecution on the part of man. They 
go down stream till they strike the main river, and then, 
moving up or down its course, make for another tributary 
creek. 

In Canada, I understand, trappers subdivide beavers 
into lake and stream beaver ; but in the northern portions 
of the Rocky Mountains of the United plates this does not 
hold good, as creek or river beaver will migrate to lakes 
and vice versa. 

One hears and reads a good deal about trappers and 
their craft ; but the details of their art — how, when, and 
where their quarry is caught — are less known, for not only 
are fur hunters generally uneducated men, who in their 
isolated lives have long forgotten — if they ever knew it — 



The Beaver and his Camp, 249 

how to wield a pen ; but they are also governed by ex- 
treme jealousy respecting what they fondly imagine to be 
the secrets of their craft. 

Beaver trapping is by no means an easy craft to learn, 
and to be moderately successful long experience and sharp 
eyes are essential. The first thing to be done on reaching 
trapping ground is to discover " slides " — i.e. the places 
where beaver pass up and down the banks of the river, 
lake, or creek in quest of food or building material. Keen 
and practised eyes will detect slides more readily, for they 
are often well-worn passage ways. The same beaver will 
rarely use more than two slides, though often half a dozen 
or more will scramble up and down the same slippery 
pathway. " Runways," another technical expression, are 
the places where beavers pass over their dams, usually 
where they are lowest. 

The traps in general use are the Newhouse No. 4 steel 
trap with plain, blunt fangs, and weighing from 241bs. to 
3|lbs., according to the length of chain. The sprkigs are 
very powerful, closing with amazing force, and requiriiig 
some practice to open them. Ordinarily they are set in 
the water at the foot of the slide, or now and again at 
either end of a runway. Before setting, the trapper must 
make sure the slide is not an old one ; a brief examination 
will suffice to settle that point. The trapper, protected 
by his high indiarubber boots, then wades into the water, 
not unfrequently up to his chest, if the banks are at all 
steep. A stake two or three feet in length, cut from the 
young pine-tree, is then driven firmly into the bank, under 
water-line, care being taken that the cut surface of the 
wood is masked b}^ a dab of mud or a piece of bark. To 
this stake, a couple of inches in diameter, the chain of the 



250 Camps in the Rockies, 

trap is tnei. fastened^ making it impossible for the beaver 
to drag the trap away — mere child's play for the very 
powerful animal were it not for this precaution. Then 
the trap is set, that is, opened and placed in such a 
manner on or near the bottom of the slide, nine or ten 
inches under water, so that the beaver, goiiig or returning 
over it, is apt to strike the trigger plate with one of his 
feet — if possible, oae of the hind ones ; the trap itseK 
is concealed by mud or leaves. ]^ow comes the nicest 
part of the undertaking, the question of "medicine" 
or scent, the purpose of which is to attract any stray 
beaver wandering up and down stream by placing a minute 
particle of a strongly smelling substance on or near the 
slide. Some few trappers never make use of scent, but hj 
far the greater number are fanatical believers in one or 
other of the himdred and one different " medicines.''^ With 
the exception of those that apply only beaver-scent — that 
is, the contents of the beaver^s oil or musk bag (or casto- 
reum), a yellow butter-like matter of a very peculiar odour 
— the choice of artificial medicine is a matter .of great con- 
troversy among the fraternity ; and it is highly amusing 
to listen to the high-flown praise the gnarled old '^stags'* 
will bestow upon their own peculiar mixture, the recipe 
of which they treasure as the secret of their craft. A re- 
liable pelt hunter once told me that the Fur Company 
trapper, an old veteran, with whom, many years before, 
he passed his trapper apprenticeship, would not divulge 
the recipe of the compound he used till his dying day, 
notwithstanding that they lived and trapped together in 
the far-off wilderness of the Oregon and Montana forests 
for six long years. Finally, mortally wounded by an 
Indian arrow, he revealed, while l^'ing on the ground 



The Beaver and his Camp, 251 

gasping for breathy the grand secret of his life to his 
faithful partner. 

Assafoetida, oil of aniseed, and other pungent essential 
oils, are not usually subjects to which hang romantic tales ; 
but this story of life and death proved the contrary. 

I was not a little amused when, on returning to civi- 
lization from my second trip, several old veteran trappers, 
entrusted me, in whispered confidencej with certain never- 
to-be-revealed secrets, namely, the names of such drugs 
for their medicine they could not obtain in the frontier 
settlements, which they begged me to send them from 
Chicago or New York — a sufficiently overwhelming token 
of confidence to make an old man of me in the con- 
scientious endeavour to keep the secrets. I am not trans- 
gressing my trust if I mention that they were of the most 
varied nature, some of the commonest being oil of aniseed, 
of amber^ of cassia, of cloves, of fennel seed, of thj^me, and 
oil of rhodium. 

After using the trap, great care has to be taken that 
every article, twig, or stake touched by the hand is care- 
fully washed off with water, which is done most effectually 
by dashing some over it. Beaver have exceedingly keen 
scenting powers, and would not think of passing over a 
slide near which a trapper has been at work who failed to 
observe that precaution. 

The traps are always set in the early evening, an hour 
or so before dusk, the majority of beavers being caupjht in 
the early hours of the ibllowing morning. A trapper's 
camp is an early-rising one, breakfast being generally 
eaten at dawn, for it is essential to visit the traps as 
soon as possible, as beavers have a knack of getting away 
in an astonishing manner if left too long between the 



252 Camps in the Rockies, 

fangs of the trap. If caught by one of their front legs, 
they will gnaw it off, just above the fangs ; or what 
happens as often, they are drowned in their vain 
endeavours to rid themselves of the trap by getting 
entangled in the chain ; or, if the water is very deep, they 
are liable to get submerged in such a position that the 
latter holds them down. On an average, I should say 
about one- third of the beavers caught are found alive in 
the traps when the trapper gets to them. Say twenty 
traps are set, it is considered good work if six beavers are 
caught, as many traps will have been sprung without 
retaining the victim, and the rest will not have been 
touched. 

Beavers are rarely trapped in summer, on account of 
the inferior quality of the pelt, the latter half of October 
being generally considered the opening of the season, 
though at higher altitudes, where winter may be said to 
commence in September, the pelt will be much earlier in 
prime condition, the animals shedding their winter coat 
very late, and ^^ rehairing ^' very early. There are 
numerous tricks for increasing the weight of the skins ; 
for, as they are all bought by the pound — the present price 
in ]N"ew York being about $2, or 86'. per pound, a big skin 
weighing, or, as the trapper will say, '^hefting,'* a little over 
two pounds — it is an object with many an unscrupulous man 
to get together as many pounds as he can. A very general 
dodge, which ruins the skins, is to strew a cupful or so 
of fine sand made red-hot over the fresh skin; each 
minute particle sinks right into the hide, and as it dries, 
these artificial pores close up, and the fraud is only dis- 
covered when the pelt comes under the furrier's knife. A 
more innocent trick is to rub cold sand into the skin 



The Beaver and his Camp, 253 

while yet wet; this does not impair its market value. 
But also the trappers are subjected to ruses on the part 
of the trade. To mention only one, it is a common 
stratagem to " rig up " the fur market in summer, 
the great fur-buying houses in the Atlantic seaboard cities 
sending out circulars to their Western correspondents in 
which prices of all pelts are put at advanced rates^ fifty or 
more per cent, over the last spring values. The news 
that beaver has ^* riz '^ spreads like wildfire, and trappers 
set out on their dreary and dangerous winter's occupation 
in the lonely wilderness with redoubled zeal, only to find 
on their return to the frontier settlements in the following 
April or May that prices have gone back to lower rates 
than ever. Thus the old story of grindstone and knife 
repeats itself. 

It must not be supposed that a daily catch of six 
beavers is an ordinary one. To be able to score that 
number for any length of time, the most out-of-the-way 
places have to be sought, and then even the trapper risks 
finding not a single good " ground,'* earlier birds having 
picked up the crumbs. To reach such secluded beaver 
grounds, weeks and months pass in autumn or winter 
travel through districts where, even in the height of 
summer, the difficulties are often overwhelming. Or, 
again, say the goal is finally reached, the hardships of 
an Arctic winter face the lonely trapper. While on the 
Plains and among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains 
very high winds prevail, which sweep off the snow, this is 
not the case in the higher Alpine forest regions, where 
snow lies deep and very long. 

The Indians of the United States — at least those of 
Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, and Montana — are very in* 



254 Camps in the Rockies, 

different trappers. The lialf-breeds, on the contrary, are 
deadly enemies of the beaver tribe, for they combine the 
'cuteness of the white man and the dogged perseverance and 
primitive style of living of their mothers^ race. They will 
winter in regions where but very few even of the amaz- 
ingly hardy trappers will venture to remain; and, moreover, 
as they have generally a little party of squaws and young 
bucks with them, they reap all the advantages of skilful 
and gratuitous labour in the skinning and preparing of 
the pelt. Not a few white trappers are married to squaws; 
but while their wives' kith and kin will not willingly 
accompan}^ the paleface, they would do so very readily 
were the man a half-breed. Not a few trapper ** outfits '* 
I met or heard of were composed of both elements, say 
one white man and a half-breed, with a couple of willing 
female slaves. These, as a rule, are perhaps the most 
successful, and I have heard of very large takes, making 
the business a really profitable one, were it not that the 
trappers, both whites and natives, are usually terribly 
cheated when exchanging their peltry for provisions. 
The Government post traders and Indian agents at the 
remote little Indian forts, pushed far in advance of other 
white settlements, make a 250 per cent, profit in buying 
up beaver skins (they usually allow $1 or 4s. worth of 
provisions, which cost them perhaps little more than half) 
and sending them direct to wholesale house in New York, 
where they fetch from 8s. to 10s. 

In the old days of the fur traders the beaver skin was 
the unit of computation in buying or trading. Provisions, 
ammunition, and blankets were bought with beaver skins, 
and horses and squaw wives were traded for them. A 
thirty-skin wife was an average article. Considering 



7^he Beaver and his Camp, 255 

that the "working of the peltry, the tanning and soften- 
ing, fell always to the lot of these unfortunate female 
slaves, it was in past days no unusual occurrence for 
one wife to work up skins wherewith, in good Mormon 
fashion, a new wife was to be traded. Among some 
few North- Western Indian tribes this monetary standard 
still prevails ; but, generally speaking, money or buck- 
skins (deer-hides) have taken its place in intertribal 
dealing. 

The market -value of beaver pelt is liable to considerable 
variations, and the trade subdivides this species of fur into 
eight or ten different categories. 

In travelling with trappers through their favourite 
mountain retreats, the most secluded spots left on this vast 
continent, you very frequently come upon sad scenes of 
havoc, where beaver have been completely trapped out — or 
what is perhaps more correct, very nearlj^ annihilated by 
trappers, the few remaining ones, probably crippled by the 
traps, leaving their hitherto peaceful homes to seek 
elsewhere security from man's persecution. I well 
remember a cluster of small lakes in the Wind River 
Mountains that presented a woeful picture of desolation. 
Half-breed trappers had disco veied the very secluded dams 
the previous season, and had made an enormous bag, 
trapping right from one cjtmp 173 beaver, the inmates of 
the tarns, which had probably never before been visited 
by human beings. Traversing the vast and very nearly 
impenetrable tracts of forest that surround the lakelets, 
I happened to stumble upon unmistakable signs of human 
travel through the woods. Following these signs, now as 
my guide a blazed trunk, then a tree felled to clear the 
way for pack animals the cut surface showing the clean 



256 Camps in the Rockies, 

work of white men's or half-breeds* ^ axes, aud not the 
chop of Indians — I Ad ally, after half a day's ramble, came 
upon the goal of my predecessors, six or seven small lakes 
nestling under an isolated towering mass of rock, and so 
securely screened by dense timber, and an inner belt of 
cottonwood-trees and willows, that you might have passed 
five-and- twenty yards from their- banks without ever 
suspecting the presence of a lake. It was the heau ideal 
of- a trapper ^s camp ; a small clearing made by their axes 
.was still dotted with skeleton remains of " wickey-ups " 
bower tents — I might describe them — and strewn about in 
great number lay birch or willow saplings bent into rings 
about two feet in diameter, whereupon the beaver skins 
had been stretched while drying. The pools had evidently 
once been one single lake, but the beaver, by ingenious 
dykes, had divided it into six or seven smaller sheets of 
water, lying tier-like, one slightly raised over the other. 
The nearest to the spring supplying the water was, of 
course, the highest, about eight or ten feet being the 
difference between its water level and that of the lowest, 
miniature cascades and channel-like timber floats con- 
necting the different lakelets. These channels for timber 
are very ingeniously laid-out contrivances, from three to 
five feet in width, and from two to four feet in depth ; 
they are intended for floating larger pieces of wood f ron 
place to place, especially where the previously-constructed 
dykes render the transportation of trunks a difficult or 
impossible job for the little workers. 

* An Indian, be he ever so handy at other things, never learns the 
use of the axe as white men do. He invariably notches the tree in a 
most unsightly manner ; here a chop, thf-re a cut, but never the clean, 
even handiwork of civilized man. Halt-breeds, with the "white** 
blood irifused into their veins, learn also the use of the axe. 



2 he Beaver and his Camp, 257 

On one side of the pools the ground rose at a steep angle 
to a slight eminence, the slopes of which were covered by 
cotton woods and quaking asps (asp-trees), some of consi- 
derable girth. Down this declivity the beaver had made 
regular timber shoots, showing very plainly that many 
generations of the indefatigable little workers had dragged 
or " shot " their building materials down the well-worn 
grooves in the soil. A glance at the numerous neatly- 
trimmed stumps that dotted the hill-side, many over 
four feet in circumference, gave a further proof of the 
wonderful activity of this beaver town's population. I do 
not remember ever seeing a more complete colony, with 
bigger dykes or better planned accessories,, one and all 
evincing, to a very striking degree, perfect knowledge 
of the principles of hydrostatics. 

At the head of the topmost lake, and surrounding the 
spring, lay a beautiful stretch oi what is known as beaver 
meadow, caused by the gradual accumulation of alluvial 
matter in the basin formed by the first dyke of the 
*^town." Some 150 yards in length, and half that width, 
it was covered with a close and even carpet of fine grass, 
forming a charming contrast to the sage green of the 
cotton woods, here and there touched "up with autumn hues, 
and the uniform dark sombre green of the silent pine 
forest in the background. It was altogether a picture not 
easily forgotten — beautiful but sad. 

The half-breed trappers, whom I happened to meet some 
weeks afterwards, had worked like Yandals. Not only was 
there not a single beaver left, but several of the large dams 
dividing the lakelets from each other had been ruthlessly 
torn down by them in their efibrts to recover lost traps ; 
for if beaver can manage to loosen the stake to which the 



258 Camps in the Rockies, 

trap in which they are caught is chained, they will walk 
it off, dragging it after them to their subterranean houses 
in the dams. Traps are very valuable in the wilderness ; 
for though you can buy them by the dozen for something 
like eighty shillings in Western towns, they are of course 
worth five or ten times that in the wilds. The water-level 
had of course been lowered considerably where the dams 
had been torn down, so that the lower portion of the dykes 
became visible. There were two or three of forty and fifty 
yards in length, about seven feet high, and at the base at 
least four feet in breadth — massive structures, wonderfully 
planned and built. In several places willow roots had 
been used b}^ the beavei% and during the past summer they 
had made shoots a foot or two in length, giving the solid 
dyke a very singular appearance. In one of these saplings, 
larger than the rest, a bird had built its nest ; but the 
inmates were long flown, and the shoot with the nest was 
swaying gentlj^ to and fro in the evening breeze. The 
melancholy silence of American Alpine forests lay over the 
whole scene. It was too late to return that day to my 
carap, so I picketed my old horse in the opening, and 
after a frugal supper watched the sun go down on this 
desolated beaver town. ]Mot a sound was to be heard, nor 
was a solitary living thing visible ; and so profound was 
the death-gloom that hung over the spot, that even the 
roaring fire that I presentlj^ lit, in front of which I 
stretched myself on my saddle blankets, fyiled to chase 
away the melanchol}' mood of Nature and man. 

As I lay there, va^ head comfortably propped up on my 
saddle, smoking my pipe, and idly watching the lights 
and shadows of my fire dancing with weird effects on the 
darV wall of rock frowning overhead, the fate of this 



The Beaver and his Camp. 259 

devastated home of sturdy little animals — aotHng left but 
ruins to repi^esent what but a short twelvemonth before 
was the picti.re of wonderful animal activity, of brute 
intelligence of the highest order — made the ruthlessly 
desecrating work of man seem doubly vile. 

Beaver have left far more lasting and useful monuments 
of their laborious activity on the surface of the country 
than the aboriginal inhabitants. 

Whole valleys are refertilized by them, the process 
being far quicker than one might suppose. Tersely ren- 
dered, it is as follows : — G-iven, a stream traversing a small 
valley, with rocky ground, on wliioh grow only occasional 
cottonwoods ; a colony of beaver on taking possession of 
it will soon make it into meadow-land. The grove of trees 
furthest down the stream is first tackled. When autumn 
comes few of them are left to rear their heads. They 
have been gnawed down, their trunks cut into logs, which 
form the foundation of an amazingly strong and massive 
dam stretched across the stream where it is narrowest, 
forming on the upper side a profound pool, as deep as the 
dam is high. If the supplv of wood lasts^ consecutive 
dams will be built up stream, from thirty to a hundred 
yards apart, so that finally, in the course of twenty or 
thirty years, there will ba no running water left. I 
have passed many such streams, when for miles you will 
pass beaver dam upon beaver dam. Time comes when the 
supply of wood is exhausted, or from other causes a 
migration of the indefatigable workers occurs. If no 
exceptional freshet or waterspout sweep them away, the 
dams soon become part of the soil. Earth and vegeta.ble 
matter gradually accumulate, and the beaver-ponds, no 
longer cleared of rubbish bv tlieir constructors, slowly 

s 2 



26o Camps in the Rockies, 

silt up, turning first into marshy expanses, and then 
gradually into firm perfectly level meadow-land of the 
richest alluvial soil, on which flourishes sod of a beautifully 
close and silken texture, rivalling the famous glacier 
meadows in the sierras, which, according to King, pre- 
sumably occupy the site, of glacier lakes. 



CHAPTER X. 

WINTER CAMPS AND INDIAN CAMPS. 

Life in a dug-out — Our Indian neighbours — Huntino: dead deer- 
Oar relations — A precipitate return — An Indian episode — A 
reservation — Two misunderstandings — The Indian languages — 
Parting with my men — A cold drive — Civilization — Eelapsing 
into semi-savagerj : its benefits. 

Once or twice in these pages mention has been made of 
dug-outs. I happen to write these lines in one of these 
subterranean abodes, so the information I have to give 
comes from the first hand. To give the reader an idea of 
the construction and mise-en-scene of a dug-out, let him 
imagine a big Cheshire cheese divided in halves^ the two 
surfaces of the cut moved slightly apart to represent the 
perpendicular loam banks of a nameless creek. In one of 
the walls, at its base, cut a square hole, not quite as high 
as it is long and broad. In front of this opening pile up 
bread crumbs in lieu of stones plastered with mud, leaving 
but a small aperture by which to creep in and out ; and 
the reader will have before him a faithful miniature model 
of a dug-out. 

It will be seen that, while its construction is simple, its 
space, some ten by nine feet, is somewhat confined to 



262 Camps m tie Rockies, 

house four men, two dogs, a dozen or more saddles and 
pack-saddles, the stores, sundry shooting-irons, two dozen 
beaver traps, bales of fur, and trifles too numerous to men- 
tion, all of which have to find shelter in this Rocky 
Mountain Welbeck Abbey, where the famous large Gothic 
hall, the great dining-room, the ball-room, the drawing- 
room, the riding-school, the miles of subterranean passages, 
and the rest of its wonders, are all thrown into one, and 
sight-seeing can be done without moving from your robe 
bed or gunpowder-keg seat. For the reader must not forget 
that this narrow space is at once sitting-room, bedchamber, 
kitchen, harness, and gunroom ; that the beds, consisting 
of bear and buffalo skins, have to be spread where the 
tablecloth, a waterproof sheet, was laid ; that ths liole in 
the doorway, where the smoke ought to go out, is continually 
getting blocked by snow, and hence that a recumbent 
position is, as long as the fire burns, the only one where 
you do no more than cry and cough, the more being death 
from suffocation. He can picture to himself the amenities 
of life while a snowstorm is raging without, and probably 
consider my invitation to ^' creep in " (I cannot say ^' walk 
in '■') the height of presumption. But Western manners, 
while hearty and full of welcome to the stranger, are 
lacking in patrician polish; so make yourself at home, and 
take a seat — or rather, stretch yourself with smoking- room 
abandon on yonder pile of fur robes ; for the only chair-liko 
T.1 tide in our dwelling, the powder keg, is occupied by a 
busy author, plying his pen in front of a novel species of 
camp writing-table, made of the horns of a wapiti, the end 
prongs stuck in the ground, and a piece of dry, raw hide 
stretched across the middle tines, in lieu of the green-baize- 
covered and blotting-pad-supplied article. Our electric 



Winter Camp^ and Indian Camps. 263 

Brush-light is furnished by a *^ devil/' a shallow, iron 
basin filled with elk tallow, v/ith a rope- end as wick. 

An eight days^ heavy snow hurricane is a very stern 
truth-teller, and makes us for the moment forget that our 
habitation's chief merits — warmth in winter and coolness 
in summer — are amply counterbalanced by its failings, its 
uncommonly annoying dust-producing qualities, and such 
minor disadvantages as the fact that it is hardly ever clear 
of the smoke produced by the open fire in the centre of 
the floor, and that, on account of its smallness, it is apt to 
crowd the "outfit." 

It is the latter half of JSTovember, and the locality a 
canyon in the unexplored Sierra Soshone : altitude 8000 
feet ; surroundings, a white pall that covers peak and 
forest, lake and gulch ; thermometer 35° below zero Fahr. ; 
distance to the next white man's habitation, 105 miles ; date 
of the newest newspaper, September 2. For nearly half 
a year our eyes have not feasted on a civilized female 
face ; last news from the outside world, 95° Fahr. in the 
shade in New Yoik. 

It would be idle to describe how all the outfit found room 
in this box-like home. It is not the first or the second 
time, but perhaps by the experience of a dozen trials, that 
you and your men succeed in getting everything into it. 
To store the flour sacks' where no driving snow can get at 
them ; to pile the saddles and the bales of valuable beaver, 
otter, and grey wolves' skins upon each other without their 
toppling over ; to put your cofiee and sugar where the 
ever-falling dust from your loam roof cannot find them'^ 
to hangup the wet garments and soaking saddle blankets 
where they are least in the way ; to find room for the 
cooking-utensils and the water- bucket ; to discover a snug 



264 Camps in the Rockies, 

corner for the dogs ; and, finally, to plan out space enough 
for yourseK and the men to move about in — this, and a 
lot more, can only be learnt by long experience, no easier to 
acquire and no less useful than the knack of making a dug- 
out with but one spade and one pick, with the ground frozen 
to the consistency of lead, and a snowstorm just setting in 
preceded by an intensely cold wind freezing out of the 
shivering snow-soaked mortals almost the last vital spark. 
If you still add that the *' boss ^' or master is afflicted 
with cacoethes scrihendi, or, as his buffalo-coated com- 
panions put it, '' is kinder partial to ink-slinging '' — the 
rai&on d'etre of aforesaid stag's-head writing-table, and the 
somewhat riskful position of the powder keg, containing 
more than sufficient to send the whole shebang with Jack- 
in-the-box-like . effect to kingdom come — the public will 
appreciate, I am of course vain enough to suppose, the 
value of lines penned, as these are, under such peculiar 
circumstances and among not less peculiar surroundings, 
and jotted down not with an ordinary pen, but with the 
self-trimmed quill of a big eagle, and with ink made not 
as other mortals' is, but of vermilion paint diluted with 
water. 

Outside the dug-out, if you dare put your nose out of 
the entrance hole, which is covered curtain-like by- 
an elk-skin, the snow hurricane is howling, and from 
the gaunt giant cottonwood-trees that line the creek, 
massive branches are dismally rattling down. How 
lucky we are ; how fortunate we must consider ourselves 
in our warm dug-out, sheltered from snow and cold ! 
Look yonder at that patch of leafless willows, behind 
which our poor horses are huddled together, their heads 
low, and their flanks gaunt with hunger. Poor faithful 



Winter Camps and Indian Cainps, 265 

brutes, they have had of late some terribly rough times- 
long marches through deep snow, heavy packs, and little 
food ; for the winter in these regions set in unprecedently 
early, and v/ith unprecedented vigour. With snow two 
feet deep, and continual storms such as none of my men 
had ever before experienced, the sun-dried buifalo grass 
could not be got at very easily by the patiently-pawing 
animals ; in fact, many a night have the poor beasts 
passed huddled together behind sheltering rocks or 
bunches of willow, not daring to stir out into the open 
where the scanty grass grew. More than surprising is 
the wonderful stamina of these animals. Reared in the 
country, they have never seen the inside of a stable, and 
know not what grain is. The cold has, therefore, to be of 
the very sev^erest to prevent them seeking their wonted 
pasturage. I was out the preceding winter, travelling 
with the same horses and two of the men ; but though in 
the opinion of Westerners the winter of 1879-80 was a 
bad one, it could not compare with the extremes of that 
following. November, especially the latter part of the 
month, was particularly severe ; and on six different oc- 
casions did the mercury congeal in my thermometer, 
which it does only at 71° of frost. At that time, too, we 
had no warm dug-out, and not even a tent, to shelter us, 
but had to " sleep out,'^ with nothing but our robes and 
sail-cl(jth bed covers to protect us against the exceptional 
inclemencies of the weather ; for though we had a tent 
with us part of the time, the gales sweeping over the barren 
highlands through which we were then travelling were far 
too severe to allow us to put it up; while, if the hurricane 
did moderate, we were generally so dead beat when at a 
late hour we pitched our camp, that nothing but the most 



266 Camps in the Rockies. 

imperative necessity could summon us to activity. To 
shovel snow for hours at a time, or to wield the heavy axa 
in relays, breaking trails through the dense expanse of 
dead timber, where trunks, fortunately of no very great 
size, lie thick across and over each other, is a time-robbing 
and most fatiguing job. 

As I have said, an «* eight-dayer " was raging outside, 
and we were beginning to doubt very strongly whether 
the majority of our horses could live through the ordeal. 
Poor things! we had nothing to give them. Flour was 
running very low with us, and that was about all we did 
have, save some sugar and coffee. 

Quite close to us there was camped a large hunting-party 
of Soshones, who, in small batches of live or six bucks , were 
in the habit of dropping in on friendly visits. We were 
on the best of terms, for since they had discovered that 
it was easier to hunt dead deer than live ones, I had 
saved them a lot of precious Sharp and Winchester 
repeating-rifle ammunition. When I shot anything they 
knew they were welcome to the most of the meat, and 
to what they were particularlj^ anxious to secure, namely, 
** buckskin," which with them, dressed in different man- 
ners, is quite as essential as linen, cotton fabrics, and 
leather are to more civilized people. The Indians of the 
United States as a rule are very indifferent shots with the 
rifle, and to see three or four bucks hunting, or rather 
running. Wapiti or Mule-deer i's a very ludicrous sight, dis- 
illusioning all one's romantic notions about Indian Nimrod- 
ship. With the bow and arrow it was something else; there 
was no report — in which, it must be mentioned, they all 
lake a boyish delight — and of course the}^ had to approach 
game much closer, and do it in a very stealthy manner. 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps. 267 

I never heard so much shooting and saw so little hitting 
as I did in the month we were right among these perfectly 
wild Indians. Often I have counted fifteen shots to one 
poor deer ; and there would be more shouting and waving 
of arms, and riding a^ full split up and down the most 
amazingly steep slopes, than would supply an evening's 
entertainment at a circus. We had got to the place a day 
or two before the Indians, and found great herds of Wapiti 
and Mule-deer roaming over the isolated highlands. 
Wherever one looked there was game. A fortnight 
afterwards I was actually a whole day vainly endeavour- 
ing to replenish our larder. Then the storm and cold 
" snap " came, and for a week it was anything but pleasant 
to stir out. Through stress of weather game was pressed 
down from higher and more exposed regions, so that when 
we could again pursue our various duties and pleasures 
there was u fresh supply of buckskin. 

Some of the Indians were great fun. I remember 
particularly one or two, i.e. Old Secundum, a podgy old 
pasha, witli as wonderful an assortment of squaws and 
papooses, ponies and dogs, bits of civilized finery of the 
most outlandish nature, and Indian curios, as you could 
wish to meet. He was a vain old Indian, and one of our 
best customers for paint ; and moreover, he had been 
bitten by the white man's love for trading. Day after 
day tlie old dog would come slouching down to our dug' 
out, and after a friendly " how how " sit down at our camp 
fireside, and give us an amicable grin all round. Then the 
heavy blanket that shrouded the portly form of the old 
gentleman would be unfolded, and there would be pro- 
duced some article for *' heap trade." He would proceed 
to inform us that the '^ man with the split body '' (that 



268 Camps in the Rockies, 

being my name with the Indians) had ** heap paint," * 
but " Secundum had heap beaver skin/' and so the trade 
would commence. When his few English words failed 
him, and our Soshone gave out, and finger-talk provided 
no aid, then would commence the tug of the trade, and 
many a hearty laugh on our part and a stoical grin on his 
would enliven the dreary hours. 

They were all well-behaved Indians — some, it is true, 
more so than others. Thus, for instance, a few of the 
bucks made a practice of coming regularly at meal times, 
the cofiee, of which they are passionately fond, being the 
main attraction. But most of them would just peep in, 
and if they saw that we were at our dinner they would wait 
outside till we had done. In the eyes of my men, who 
were poisoning wolves, they were, however, arrant thieves, 
for they habitually followed their tracks and picked up 
the poisoned bait, using it for their own purposes in 
another part of the country. There were a great many 
wolves, the common as well as the far larger and more 
valuable grey or silver species, about; hence long "strings'* 
of poison ^ would be laid by the men ; but generally by the 
following morning they had all mysteriously disappeared, 

* Seap, signifying much, is one of the few English words nearly 
all Indiaiis know. I once heard of a ludicrous application. Walking 
up to where one of the commanding officers, with his wife — a very- 
stout lady — was standing, a reservation Indian addressed them, with 
the usual greeting : " How how," and presently, without any further 
introduction, remarked, pointing pointblauk at the lady : " That heap 
heap squaw ! '' 

2 There are two ways of using poison (strychnine) ; either to poison 
a whole carcass, or to take a number of medium-sized chunks of meat, 
poison each, and while riding along, drop piece after piece about a 
hundred yards between each. This latter is called stringing poison. 



Winter Camps mid Indian Camps, 269 

and no victims were to be seen. Watching the men as tliey 
laid it, it was easy enough for the Indians to follow, and 
remove the bait to other places which they alone knew. 

Speaking of poison, I may as well here mention, that 
under circumstances it proves a more profitable, and 
always a more useful occupation, than trapping. Wolves 
do an enormous amount of damage to game ; indeed, the 
big grey wolf is quite a formidable fellow to look at 
(weighing fifty and sixty pounds), though it never 
troubles human beings. In frontier country nearer civili- 
zation, they commit great ravages among the calves, so 
that all the Territorial legislatures pay head-money for 
wolves, varying from three to six shillings. In Wyoming 
it was then four shillings ($1) ; and as the skin besides is 
worth, of the common wolf four shillings, and of the grey 
twelve shillings, a big haul of wolf- skins is quite as profit- 
able a catch as trapping beaver, which is a far more uncer- 
tain business. In the difierent Territories the head-money 
used to be paid not on the same, but on diffei ent trophies. 
Thus in Wyoming the right fore -paw had to be produced ; 
in Colorado, the scalp with the two ears ; in others the 
left fore-paw, and formerly also the tail. Stories are 
told of unscrupulous old trappers who got head-money 
twice or three times over on one animal, by presenting the 
scalp in one, the paw in the other, and the tail in the 
third Territor}^, or by turning the left front-paw into a 
right front-paw, by dexterously skinning it and trj/.nsfer- 
ring the ^'dewclaw," or false t-law, from the right to the 
left side, and then drawing the skin again over it, efiec- 
tually hiding, particularly in a dried condition, all traces 
of the doctoring. Where wolves are " thick,^^ i.e, where 
there are many, both methods of applying the strychnine 



270 Camps in the Rockies, 

are employed. Now and again more than a dozen wolves 
(the men once got sixteen) will be found /ound one car- 
cass. Death, particularly if the stomach is empty, which 
is mostly the case, is very rapid. On moonlight nights I 
have on one or two occasions watched the action of the 
poison. It is as rapid as strangulation, hence on the 
whole is less cruel than shooting, for there are no wounded 
and crippled to die a lingering death. 

Indians — to return to them again — are very curious, 
and ray Express rifle was an object of great interest, 
affording us vast amusement on the two or three occasions 
that I let them try it, for by a little artifice I managed it 
so that both barrels went off simultaneously, producing an 
immense recoil sufficient to knock down a grizzly ; ^ and 
to see a stoical straight -backed old hiich sent a clean 
Bummersault backward was too ludicrous a sight, and onl}'" 
to be likened to a pompous old alderman, clothed in a 
breech clout, and an old blanket tightly drawn about his 
back, shrouding, but not hiding his well-developed form, 
suddenly turning head over heels. As the victim picked 
himself up — entirely ignorant, of course, of the trick — with 
all the inbred seriousness of his race he would pronounce 
the Express, the '' heap boss gun of the man with the split 
body to be big medicine.^' A similar notable reputation 
for "big medicine '^ I once gained by administering to a 

* Both triggers could be set to hair triggers, and by firing one 
barrel while the other was set, the concussion would make it go off 
too, the lightness of the rifle and the double cliarge of about eleven 
drachms, or about 310 grains of powder, producing an overwhelmingly 
formidable recoil. Through inadvertence I tried it on myself once 
or twice, and it knocked me clean out of my saddle, much to the asto- 
nishment of Boreas. 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps. 271 

very livery-looking Arrappahoe a gigantic dose of six 
pills. 

Another Soshone, a good-looking young huch^ called 
*' Powder in tlie Hand " by his comrades, though he had 
another quite unpronounceable Indian name, managed to 
fool us in good style. He had served on a short Indian 
campaign as assistant scout to some troops, and had learnt 
English, not only to understand it, but to speak it. When 
we first saw him he shook his head in the usual fashion 
when I addressed him in English, letting it appear as if 
he understood not a single word of it. For a fortnight 
he had been constantly coming round to us, generally 
when there was some trade or other on, and on one or 
two occasions I noticed that secret signs passed between 
him and his companion, whoever it happened to be, and 
that always on these occasions the little trade between the 
men and the Indians was a stiff one, convincing me that 
he understood English. A little catch I prepared for him 
proved successful, and " Powder in the hand '* was found 
to be quite a scholar. Indians are very apt to hide their 
knowledge of English if they think it can serve them ; 
and caution iu this respect under certain circumstances is 
very advisable. 

Indian philosophy is of a primitive, though not unprac- 
tical character. It consists, so far as his daily life is con- 
cerned, in the dogma of, / want it, or / donH want it. If 
he wants a thing he will do his best, give almost his all, 
risk his own skin, and tell the greatest lies, to acquire it. 
If he is short of ammunition when setting out on his 
*' fall," or winter hunt, he will trade a handsome Indian- 
worked buffalo robe, worth at least ZL, for cartridges worth 
a3 many sixpences. When he comes back from his hunt, 



272 Camps in the Rockies, 

a cupful of coffee or sugar will often obtain the same 
trade. A horse worth 10/., which at the beginning of the 
hunt he would not give you for three times that amount of 
money in the most cherished articles of trade, he will give 
you for less than a tenth on his return. This is the main 
reason why Indians, who often own a number of valuable 
horses, never seem to accumulate wealth in kind. Though 
the word nomadic Indian is^ with one or two exceptions^ a 
grossly misapplied term for the Aborigines of North 
America, this getting rid, at a ruinous loss, of anything 
and everything when they no longer have immediate use 
for it, and paying exorbitantly for what, at the moment, 
they may happen to want, is yet a characteristic of all 
nomadic races, and is opposed to all principles of mature 
civilization. 

While among the Soshones, old Secundum brought us 
rather unpleasant news, namely, that the neighbouring 
tribe of Arrappahoes were on the war-path — news which 
one of his hicli8 had brought him, and which seemed to 
be confirmed by the fact of a party of Crow Indians 
having passed us a short time before on tlieir way to 
Black-Coal, the Arrappahoe chief, with some fresh Sioux 
scalps as an intertribal offering to secure the co-operation 
of him and his tribe. As our course to the nearest Fort, 
the only way to get out of the mountain wilderness we 
were in, lay for nearly a hundred miles through the 
Arrappahoe hunting country, the outlook was not the 
very pleasantest. The truth, however, was not as bad 
as the alarm, though it precipitated our return. On 
the tenth day, after the most trying short journey that I 
ever remember, we at last sighted the snowed-up Fort 
Washakie, which we had left the preceding July, when 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps, 273 

tlie thermometer was up in the nineties. The cold was 
very great, quite equal to that of the Arctic regions ; 
worse still was the wind_, requiring constant care to pre- 
vent frostbite. And as at the time we had no tent, and 
simply slept on and under our buffalo robes on the snow^ 
the hardships of that trip were, quite in consequence 
of the unprecedented cold and storms, of an unusual 
kind. 

To one incident of these ten days I would desire to 
refer, as showing the Indian character and the incredibly 
miserable position of the squaws, upon which so many 
writers have dilated. We were within a day or two's 
travel of the Fort^ and late at night, after a perishingly 
cold ride, reached the banks of the Big Wind Eiver, at 
one of the few fords, intending to cross it as best we 
could the following morning. We were saddling up our 
wretched, emaciated horses at an early hour of the terribly 
cold morning — during the night the mercury had congealed 
in my thermometer, so that there must have been, at the 
least, seventy-one degrees of frost, and the dismal aspect 
of the snow-clad unutterably dreary bad-land scenery 
needed not the fine powdery snow driving before the wind 
to make it peculiarly depressing — when an Indian with his 
squaw, driving before them some ten or twelve miserably 
thin horses, packed with their usual lares et penates, passed 
us, and proceeded to cross the river. As we thought it 
likely that they knew the exact spot of the ford, I went 
to watch them take the water. 

It was about as nasty a crossing as ever I saw. 
The Wind River is at all times a vsry dangerous 
stream, for its great fall and the vast volume of water 
that fills it in early summer, change the bed from year to 

T 



2 74 Camps in the Rockies, 

year — nay, from montli to month. Where you were able 
to ford in September, you will find in October deep water 
and most dangerous under -currents or quicksands. Kow, 
though it was at the lowest, the ice had raised fresh 
obstacles. Fancy a river as broad as the Thames at Hamp- 
ton Court running in the centre as swift as a mill sluice^ so 
rapid that eren the Arctic cold could not subdue it, while 
on both sides, where it ran slower, ice to a thickness of at 
least eighteen inches or two feet had been formed. Stand- 
ing on the brink of this bank of solid ice you had before 
you the gurgling, rushing, dark green current, in the 
shape of a gulf some forty yards in width, without the 
slightest clue as to its depth. It was, under the circum- 
stances, as uninviting a plunge on this terribly cold day 
as could well be imagined. The squaw, a good-looking 
young creature, was ahead, astride of a ponj^ while the 
huok was in the rear, *^ whooping '' the animals along at 
a fast pace. In her arms, suspended bj^ a broad band, 
she held a miserable morsel of humanity, wrapped in a 
wolf skin ; it was a baby, apparently only a week or two 
old.^ On getting on to the firm ice she slackened up, 
proceeding at a walk, for it was very slippery. On 
getting close to the brink of the yawning gulf of water 
she evidently began to be afraid, and pulling up her 
pony, looked back at her lord and master with a pleading 
look — quite merited by the aspect of the river in front of 
her, gurgling and splashing past her with great velocity. 
But there was little chivalry or mercy in the stolid- faced 
Arrappahoe huck. Without saying a word, he simply 

* Quite young babies are held in the arms, for obvious reasons, 
while when they are a few months old they are strapped to a small 
board and carried by the mothers on their backs". 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps. 275 

stretclied out his arm in a commanding field-marslial-like 
gesture^ and the wretched woman knew she had to pro- 
ceed. Laying her punishing " quirt " or whip about her 
shrinking pony^ she forced him to phmge from the ice 
step into the current. But the water was deeper than 
she expected^ and the horse turned a summersault and 
was swept away by the rushing water. The wretched 
woman had, of course, lost her seat, and though she had 
still hold of the reins, there was every chance of her 
getting drowned. With a yell the buck had run his 
horse at full speed (it was unsliod of course, as all Indian 
ponies are) along the ice bank, and long before I could 
reach the bend of the river, where I fancied I could aid 
her, he was there, and amid a volley of Arrappahoe 
helped the squaw out — by this time she had let go of the 
reins — and taking her up on his own horse, plunged again 
into the river, and in two or three minutes had got across 
safely. On reaching the opposite bank, she slid down from 
the horse ; while he, apparently far more anxious about 
the pony than on her account, galloped down the stream, 
and finally managed to get out the struggling horse at a 
point where there was no ice to speak of on the pebble- 
strewn bank. The whole thing was over in seven or eight 
minutes, but it was sufficiently long to turn the poor 
woman, who was fondling the screaming baby, into a 
column of ice, and by the time the rest of the ponies were 
got across by the buck, the folds of the heavy blanket — 
her only clothing except a buckskin under- garment — were 
frozen so stiff as to impede her movements when she re- 
mounted her pony to proc'eed to some brushwood, where 
rising smoke soon showed that the miserable creature was 
drying or changing her blanket toilet. 

T 2 



2^6 Camps in the Rockies. 

When, three or four hours later — for we were more 
cautious in selecting aford, though the water even then came 
up to our saddles — we passed the place where the Indians 
had halted, they had already left, I suppose not much the 
worse for that bath, with the thermometer down to fifty 
degrees of frost. Frederick the Grreat's dictum^ // faut 
traiter son corjjs en canaille, is, as we have seen_, very 
generally acted upon by these hardy tribes of the North- 
West. 

On reaching the fort — the first habitation I had seen 
for five months — we were hailed, by those who knew that 
we still were out, as risen from the dead. 

I have been so often asked what an Indian '* reservation " 
is, that I fancy a very brief explanation of this term 
will be useful. A reservation is a vast tract of country 
" given " to, i.e. secured by solemn treaty to, one or more 
tribes. On this land whites are supposed not to mine, or 
settle, or build houses, or hunt or trap game. There are 
laws to this effect ; but as the land is a perfect wilderness, 
and the boundaries are on paper or on maps, and those 
papers or maps are securely locked up in the Indian Office 
at Washington, and as, finally, there is nobody deputed to 
see to the enforcement of this law, the military forces not 
being used for this purpose, nothing but the fear of a 
sudden Indian rising can restrain the white man, be he 
mining prospector, rancheman, hunter, or trapper, from 
2ncroaching upon the red man^s property leading— for fron- 
tiersmen like some risk — to reprisals and counter-reprisals. 
This, together with the concomitant results of nefarious 
cheating on the part of white man generally, is, in broad 
outline, the usual cause of the frequent Indian wars — a 
topic upon which very nearly all authors on the West 



Winter Ca7nps and Indian Ca^nps, 277 

have theorized. With the reader''s permission I will make 
an exception. 

The Washakie (or Soshone, or Snake Indian) reservation 
is as large as a good- sized kingdom. The Agency, 
where reside the few Government officials whose business 
it is to look after the Indians, and carry out the stipulations- 
of the treaty in the way of distributing blankets, flour, 
&c._, among the tribe, is in the centre, protected by the 
Fort ; and well may it be protected,, at least among tlie few 
remaining wild tribes, for the residents are usually the first to 
fall victims to a sudden outbreak. Only the year before, at 
the next reservation, that of the Utes, thewhole Agency was 
murdered, and the females carried off. The reservation I 
am speaking of is shared by the two tribes — the Soshones 
and the Arrappahoes. The former have long been a very 
peaceful tribe, chiefly owing, it must be meritioned, to the 
sage advice of their old chief — the famous Washakie^ in 
appearance one of the most characteristic patriarchal 
braves of the old school. Since 1863, when the tribe 
experienced a severe "■ whipping " at the hands of the troops, 
white man has not been injured by them. The Arrappa- 
hoes, on the contrary, with whom they are not on the 
best of terms, are to-day, next to the Appaches of the 
South, the most unsettled and dangerous of the Red- 
skins. Only the year before, my party had been made 
aware of this in an unpleasant manner. However, this 
time, owing to several circumstances, we remained on 
good ** how how " terms with the ycung bucks, who, 
as a rule, are the most eager to go out a' harvesting glory 
and solitary white men's hair. 

The greater part of the year only a small portion of 
the two tribes, mostly the old and decrepit, are near the 



278 Camps tn the Rockies, 

Agency, their skin or canvas teeppees or tentlike wigwams 
dotting the broad mountain- girt Plain surrounding the 
Agency. 

Owing to the severit}^ of the weather we found on reach- 
ing Washakie the greater portion of the Indians camped 
in the immediate neighbourhood; among them Black 
Coal'^ the Arrappahoe chiefs with a portion of his tribe, 
just in from their fall or winter hunt, brought to an early 
termination by the exceptional cold. 

Many of the younger hucks had, however, absented 
themselves on French leave, and were now supposed to be 
engaged in a miniature war of their own, though nothing 
certain was known. Having a lot of paint left, and 
wanting some Indian trifles to take home with me, I had 
my presence announced to Black Coal, and received a polite 
invite to his big teeppee or wigwam. I knew him from a 
former occasion, but was curious to see him in his 
chieftain's home. The Arrappahoe language is the most 
difficult of all Indian tongues; indeed, it is said that two 
Arrappahoes cannot perfectly understand each other in 
the dark — that is, v.^ithout the aid of finger talk, or language 
of signs common to nearly all Indians of North America, 
and of which all genuine trappers understand the rudiments. 
Black Coal — whose name is derived from the circumstance 
that after a sanguinary victory over the Utes, when he lost 
two or three fingers and received other wounds, he, in 
commemoration, wallowed naked in the hot ashes of the 
enemy's camp fires until he was black as coal — is not only 
an uncommonly intelligent Indian, but a remarkably jealous 

^ One of Sarper's for 1881 (either March or April), contained an 
able account of this tribe, and had some capital and exceptionally good 
likenesses of Black Coal and other subchiefs. 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps, 2 79 

one. The morals of his tribe are, in strong contrast to 
those of the Soshone, notoriously bad. The squaws when 
quite young are not quite as repulsive-looking as Indian 
females generally are, and one or two I saw were swarthy 
beauties with piercing black eyes — a feature which marks 
also the men in an unusually prominent manner. There is 
a peculiar steel-blue glitter about the piercing and sloe- 
black eyes of Arrappahoesthat gives them an uncommonly 
unpleasant and ferocious look, quite wicked enough with- 
out the fire of war and murder lighting them up. 1 met 
several young hucks who possessed this steely glitter to 
such a degree that it acted on me like a snake-charmer^s 
glauce. I could not take my eyes off theirs. 

Black Coal received me in the usual stoical Indian 
fashion. He was alone in the big chief's teeppee with two 
of his favourite squaws — very superior personages. When 
he saw my parcel of paints his face became more lively. 
I had opened the waterproof covering, displaying the 
Seidlitz-powder-shaped papers of vermilion ; and evidently 
the temptation was too great, for he suddenly reached over, 
took up several, and put them into the pocket of his chief- 
tain's coat — an old soldier's cape. Now to allow this would 
have been madness, for if ever a white man lets a wild 
Indian possess himself of the proverbial finger, he is very apt 
to want not only the hand, but also the body of the finger's 
owner, diffidence being a word the sense of which is 
quite unknown to the Indian. Therefore had I permitted 
this barefaced annexation to go unchallenged, I might 
have passed a bad quarter of an hour at Mr. Black Coara 
hands. Understanding English very fairly, I soon con- 
vinced him, chiefly, I am inclined to think, by placing my 
cocked Colt in my lap — we were sitting on mats round the 



28o Camps in the Rockies, 

fire on the floor in the centre of the wigwam — that the 
paint had to be returned. Presently it was. Then the 
trade I had come for commenced, and in exchange for 
a lot of little trifles of Indian workmanship I got rid 
of all my paints but two. After our little misunder- 
standing at the commencement of the interview, I did not 
wish to appear shabby ; so just before rising to leave I 
threw the remaining two paints into the laps of the two 
squaws sitting opposite to me, who with eager eyes had 
followed every movement, for I suppose their feminine 
vanity had never been gratified with the sight of so many 
paints, which are as highly prized by them as by their lords. 
This act, done in the thoughtless heedlessness of the 
moment^ might easily have cost me very dear, for I could 
not have given the chief deadlier insult than by thus 
impugning the good fame of his queenly squaws, the 
simple ethics of the Indian comprehending no other solu- 
tion of my act than one to which the common squaws of the 
tribe were constantly subjected.^ With one bound he was 
en his legs, and I am convinced, had not my revolver 
happened to be still lying at my side, his clutch would 
have been at my throat the next instant. As it was, he 
raised himself to his full height, his eyes glistening with 
anger, and stretching his right arm out in the most im- 
perious manner, he pointed with it to the entrance, and 
exclaimed, with unmistakable force, '' Go ! ^' And I went. 
Outside when the full ludicrousness of the situation burst 
upon me, I enjoyed a good laugh — but it was after I had 
put myself beyond Winchester rifle range. 

® The presence of several hundred soldiers, mostly unmari'ied men, 
in the Fort, contributed, as is geneially the case, to the exceedingly bad 
btate of morality among the Arrappahoes. 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps, 281 

That day was fated to be one of misunderstandings. 
While strolling through the reservation^ where the 
news of a paint Croesus had spread, bringing me into 
contact with other Arrappahoes who were desirous of 
trading, my attention was drawn to a huge old Indian 
warrior. Of very commanding presence, unusually tall^ 
and of corresponding physical development, he was more 
like what fancy generally leads one to suppose the Indians 
a la Cooper to be, than any specimen I had ever seen. 
He was an under chief — I forget his name — and, to judge 
from the very numerous scars of arrow, knife, and bullet 
on his body and limbs, he had seen a vast deal of fighting. 
He was a particularly fierce-looking old Arrappahoe ; his 
eagle nose, one of the distinguishing features of his tribe, 
the ghastly streaks of bright vermilion on his face, and 
that deadly steely glisten in his eyes, gave his phj^siognomy 
a look that would probably haunt a nervous person. I had 
exchanged civilities v/ith this old fellow, and he was now 
finishing the stump of my cigar, when I was tempted to 
enter upon a more extended conversation^, carried on in 
the sign language, at which I am no great proficient. 
The old fellow's chin was distinguished by a few hairs 
that started from his massive under -jaw in a very desultory 
hog-bristly fashion. Struck with this — Indians have, as 
I need hardly say, no beards — I was desirous to know the 
cause of this phenomenon. It was not an easy phrase to 
frame in the sign manual language, and anfortunately 
instead of saying, as I afterwards learnt, ^'How has it 
come to pass that the bravest of the brave^ the man of all 
men, the dearest friend I have among the ' good hearts/' 

^ The Arrappahoes call themselves " The Good Hearts," a meaning- 
which is designated by touching the left breast. Every tribe has its 



282 Camps in the Rockies. 

has grown such a flowing beard ? " (if I remember rightly* 
T counted seventeen bristles) — instead of this^ I say, I 
sign-talked " that his face was like a young maiden^s, and 
his heart that of an old squaw" — about the most mortally 
oifensive affront I could have offered him. Flinging the 
cigar stump, the pipe of peace, aside, he started up, and if 
ever business shone in a man^s eye, it was in that Indian's. 
Yery fortunately for me, I was on this occasion not alone, 
for just previously a young Arrappahbe, whom we had met 
out hunting, and whose good will I had secured by a few 
little presents, had joined me. I left him to explain 
matters, and vowed I would henceforth confine myself to 
such sign manuals as I was perfectly sure of — a piece of 
advice I would humbly offer also to others. 

Of the languages of the North American Indians little 
is known, but of quite late years several men of science havo 
devoted a good deal of attention to this subject- Foremost 
among them stand the names of the indeftitigable Powell, 
Trumbull, Colonel Gibbs, and other philologists. The 
perusal of their most interesting works fiUed-in many 
puzzling voids in my own far more modest acquaintance 
with the subject. Confining myself to a most brief 
epitome of the most striking facts, I shall first dwell on the 
self-interpreting definition of all Indian names. 

Mills defines a proper name to be a mere mark put 
upon an individual or a place, and of which it is the 
characteristic property to be destitute of meaning. As has 
been pointed out, we call a man TVilliams or Robinson 

own Indian name ; thus the Soshones are known as " Long Hairs," and 
if you want to express this name, you pass both your hands from the 
ears down to the breast, as if passing the long plaited tresses worn by 
that tribe through your hands. 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps, 283 

just as we put a number on a policeman's collar or turn the 
personality of an hotel visitor into No. 99 or 999. 

Indian names^ on the contrarj^^ describe the locality, 
sometimes topographically or historically , or indicate one of 
the natural products or peculiarities of the place. 

While one tribe calls the beaver ^''the animal that fells 
trees," another terms it ^^ the beast that puts its head out 
of the water/"* while a third has it as ^^ the sharp-toothed 
swimmer .''^ The Utes call the bear^ ^' the seizor/' or ^' the 
hugger/' The Senecas speak of North as the place ^^ where 
the sun never goes." 

Thus/^or,^, which in our language tells us nothing about 
the animal it names, is expressed by names indicating 
^' the beast that carries on his back a living burden/' or 
the ''^ creature w^hose -hoofs are all solid/^ or the "wonder- 
ful domestic animal introduced by white man." Colonel 
Gibbs^ gives some interesting instances of the analysis of 
numerals in the Indian language often resembling those of 
the Eskimo, who express, for instance, ticenty by one man, i.e. 
all fingers and toes. Regarding concrete nouns, the Indian 
languages are even more definite in their expression. The 
Indian never kneels; so when Elliot translates kneeling 
(Mark i. 40), the word which he was compelled to form 
fills a line, and numbers eleven syllables ; which again, to 
render into English require for its accurate interpretation 
eight or ten English words. 

In the Indian languages economy of speech is not prac- 
tised, though we must not mistake economy of utterance 
for economy of thought ; the first has to do with the 



* "Instructions for research relative to the Ethnology and Philology 
of America, prepared by the Smithsonian Institute." 



284 Cmnps in the Rockies, 

phonetic constitution of words^ tlie latter with the develop- 
ment of sentences. 

Mr. Powell gives an instance in the Ponca languager 
If one of this tribe wants to say that a man killed a rabbit, 
he would have to express himself thus : — The maii^ he^ one 
animate (not dead) standing (in the nominative case) pur- 
posely killed by shooting an arrow, the rabbit, he, the one, 
animate, sitting (in the objective ca§e). 

In some Indian languages there are certain words used 
for the names of children given them in the order of 
their birth, so that the child's name indicates this order. 

One of the most singular features, says Mr. Powell, of 
the Indian languages, is the fact that the verb often 
includes within itself subject, direct object, qualifier and 
relation-idea — or in other words, that the Indian verbs 
include within themselves meanings which in English are 
expressed by adverbs and adverbial phrases and clauses. 
Thus the verb to go may be represented by a word signi- 
fyiog go Jiome, or by another go from home, or to go on 
foot, or to go up a river, or still another, to go in a canoe. 

In the Eastern, or Atlantic regions, nearly all the 
geographical names have become strangely mutilated, 
and, as Mr. Trumbull remarks, in view of '*the Indian 
poly syntheses, with their frequent gutturals and nasals, 
it is hardly possible to be different. The river Swatara 
becomes : ^ Sweet Arrow,^ the Popoagie : ' Proposure,^ the 
Potopaco : ' Port Tobacco.' Nama' anhl (the place for fish) 
passes through 'JSTamurack,'' 'Namalake,^ and finally be- 
comes :* May Luck.' llosJcUu-anJie (grass-land) is meta- 
morphosed into : ' Mosquito Hawk.' The Canadian Jay, 
better known as 'Whiskey Jack,' derives its origin 
from Oicishcatcha." Sometimes, as is remarked in the 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps, 285 

same Report^ Etymology overreaches itself by regard- 
ing an aboriginal name as the corrupt form of a 
foreign one. Thus the Mashalonge, or ' great long nose ' 
of the St. Lawrence river, has been reputed of French 
origin-: — masque elonge ; and* Sccgackonii/ the Indian name 
for a substitute for tobacco, has been deiived from sac-cu- 
commis, on account of the Hudson's Bay officers carrying it 
in bags for smoking, as Sir John Richardson believed 
(Arctic Exped. ii. 303). "^It was left for the ingenuity 
of a "Westminster Eeviewer to discover that barbecue (a 
wooden frame or grille for roasting meat) might be a 
corruption of the French barbe a queue, i.e. ' from snout 
to tail ' — a suggestion which, it appears, has found favour 
with lexicographers.'" 

There is a wonderful multiplicity of distinct languages 
and subordinate dialects among the Indian tribes. Thus 
among the Snake Indians, of which tribe the Soshones 
are a branch, seven perfectly different languages are 
spoken. Under these circumstances the sign manuals 
fill a decided want. Somehow its interpreting meanings 
are known throughout the West ; and I am informed by 
persons who have been among the Appaches, in the ex- 
treme south of the States, that the signs used by them 
are the same as are understood by the Flatheads in the 
northernmost portions of the country, 2000 miles inter- 
vening between them. The syntactic and descriptive 
construction of all Indifm languages facilitates, of course, 
communication by sign manual. It is possible to describe 
by signs a certain place as the spot '^ vrhere near big cavea 
the elk shed their horns and the rocks are red," a locality 
which we, perhaps, would call ^* Clark's Fork," or " Carson 
Basin." 



286 Camps in the Rockies, 

The weather continuing excessively severe, and our 
horses, notwithstanding their loads, consisting mostly of 
ray antlers and heads, had been reduced to a minimum — 
obliging me with much heartburning to throw aside many 
grand trophies — being at the last stage of emaciaj^ion, I 
decided^ two days after leaving Fort Washakie, to bring 
our trip to a temporary termination. While the men were 
to proceed to their winter-quarters to await my return, I 
availed myself of the mail sleigh conveying despatches and 
mail from the fort to the nearest U. P. station, 155 miles 
south of us, from whence I intended to proceed to Salt Lake 
City, there to await more favourable weather to take up my 
interrupted journey with them into the Colorado River 
countr}^ But the winter of 1880-1 was one that knocked on 
the head all my plans, for not only v/asmy little pack-train 
rendered entirely liors de combat, several of the horses 
having perished, but even had they been fresh animals 
they could not have crossed the snow-hurricane-swept 
250 miles of bad-land country intervening between their 
home and the head ca.nyons of the river I desired to visit, 
and of which I shall have to speak in the next chapter. 

I had an intensely cold sleigh-ride before me, across 
two great barren passes, one of them 10,000 feet above the 
sea^ and on the whole I had every reason to congratulate 
myself that the journey from the Fort to the railway took 
me only five days (in summer it is covered in thirty- six 
hours). In all my experience of sleigh -driving, to me the 
pleasantest manner of travel, they certainly occupy a 
prominent place. Severe snowstorms had snowed up the 
two regular mail sleighs, obliging the drivers to cut loose 
the horses and abandon them, they themselves escaping 
in both cases in a badly frostbitten condition, from which 



Winter Ca^nps and Indian Camps, 287 

I heard the one never recovered. My own journey had 
therefore to be performed in a very primitive vehicle, 
knocked together in a forenoon. The driver and I sat 
but a few inches over the snow (where it was beaten down) 
on a platform consisting of a few packing-case boards 
nailed across the runners, the mail sack as a seat, and 
several buffalo robes to cover us. While crossing drifts, 
great billowy of powdery snow would close over us. The 
drivers changed twice a day, while fresh horses were put 
in every twelve or fifteen miles, the miserable log shanties 
where the rela^^s were stabled being — except two mining 
settlements, then completely snowed up — the only human 
habitation we passed on the whole weary hundred and 
fifty-five mile drive. The cold on these elevated steppes 
was of that dangerous kind that benumbed before one had 
an idea of its doing so. Added to the sixty or seventy 
degrees of frost, a high wind did its best to increase our 
sufierings ; and as on the bleak mountain ridges we had to 
cross about Timberline snowdrifts thirty feet high would 
be formed by the hurricane in a quarter of an hour, there 
was also something of a risk ; the high mail forfeits, and 
consequently good pay of the drivers, being the only 
reason that the mail service was not stopped altogether. 
The drivers on these terribly exposed routes are invariably 
good men ; and the way the one who took me across the 
highest of the two passes managed to find his wa}^ in the 
blinding snowstorm, night falling fast, and nothing w^hat- 
ever to guide the horses or the driver, was very creditable- 
While I was crouching close up to him, my head covered, 
by buffalo robes, he, poor fellow, with onl}^ a veil over his 
face, had to expose not only that but also his hands for 
seven hours. Now and again, when in his dry tone he 



288 Camps in the Rockies, 

would exclaim, ''Boss, I guess my nose is friz (frostbitten) 
doggarned near off my face/' I would relieve him, and 
let him occupy himself rubbing his nose and cheeks with 
snow under the shelter of the robes, while I took the 
ribbons. But notwithstanding I imagined myself fairly 
inured to cold, and I had two pair of gloves on my hands, 
the outer one of warm fur, half an hour's exposure made 
them so stiff that, however unwilling, I was forced to 
relinquish the reins. When finally, at midnight, we drew 
up at the log shanty where we passed the night, the 
70 odd degrees of frost which the thermometer was 
then marking seemed more like 700. We were both 
frostbitten, and I shall carry mementoes of that and of 
the following day's cold about with me for my life. 

The driver who took me the last stage of my journey 

into X was an amusing fellow. For all I know, the 

former ones might have been that too, but it was far too 
eold for them to show it or for me to find it out; but as 
the thermometer had " struck the twenties,'' and an 
Arctic-looking sun was doing its best to make things look 
brighter, conversation, helped on by an ample allowance 
of whiskey, cropped up apace. A mile or so outside of 
the city we crossed a small, shallow gulch, spanned by a 
rude bridge consisting of two cross-beams and seven or 
eight transversely-laid trees, the construction of which at 
the utmost could have cost six or seven dollars. Hardly 
were we on it, when down came the whole affair, and we 
were landed in some drifted snow at the bottom of the 
gully. As for me, it was the eleventh or twelfth upset 
on the drive ; but inasmuch as, owing to the narrowness 
of the gulch, the horses very nearly came to lie upon us, 
it was the most unpleasant one of the lot. My driver took 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps. 289 

it even more stoically than I did, and jocularly remarked, 
" For a $700 bridge it ougbter (ought to have) stood an 
extra cuss's heft (weight) ! " We were indeed approaching 
civilization ! for the structure which had given way 
under us had really cost the "■ city " that sum, owing, as 
I need hardly say, to gross jobbery. We had both 
escaped without the slightest injury — a circumstance which 
did not seem to please Joe, for, according to him, if 
you had any friends airjong the "bosses as were running 
the town, there was hefty money in that thar bridge'^ in 
the way of damages for a black eye or contused nose ; 
and when we finally got our vehicle up the bank and 
found it whole, not a board or nail missing, it was in 
Joe's eyes *' Just like Lis darned luck; might have got a 
hundred dollars out of the county." 

A quarter of an hour later we rattled through the snow- 
imprisoned " city '' of X , and I was back in civili- 
zation. 

The following was a bright December day ; to me it 
seemed quite summerly, for the settlement lay very shel- 
tered, and much, lower than the steppes over which I had 
been travelling. 

My cane-bottomed chair, tipped back at an angle ; a 
pile of letters, and a bigger one of newspapers — the accu- 
mulation of four or five months^ — lyi^g on a chair near 
me ; I was sitting on the platform in front of a certain 

^ Intending visitors to the West, it may be useful for them to 
know, should bear in mind, when ordering their letters to be for- 
warded, that a United States post-office regulation obliges the post- 
masters, if not instructed to the contrary, to return all letters that 
Lave remained unclaimed at their offices foi- thirty days, to the Chief 
Office at Washington, to be thence forwarded back to the senders. 



290 Camps in the Rockies. 

railway hotel. So far as a warm bath, the barber, and 
civilized clothes could accomplish the metamorpliosis, I 
was again a white man. But it was, at best, only a partial 
and outward chaDge. Though the natives were walking 
about with cold-pinched faces, wrapped in furs, the heat of 
the rooms in the hotel seemed as unbearable to me as the 
ordinary costume of mankind appeared ludicrously elaborate, 
and, after the loose, though tattered and stained flannel 
and buckskin wardrobe, most uncomfortably confining. 
I felt as awkward and gawky as a schoolboy does the first 
time he appears in a swallow-tail coat. My shirt cuffs 
seemed too long, or too short ; and having increased more 
than a stone in weight, there was just cause for my 
wriggling my head about, trying to ease the tight fit of a 
stand-up collar. Altogether I felt myself unpleasantly 
conspicuous ; and the nameless tortures experienced by a 
man *' walking out " a new suit of clothes for the first 
time, beset me. My linen looked uncommonly white, and 
contrasted with the chestnut tint of my face and neck. 
And why on earth did the passers-by stare so at me ? I 
finally detected that it was for the very good reason that 
they could not quite unr^erstand why I sat sunning myself 
on that bitterly cold winter^s day, in front of the hotelr— 
a circumstance the editor of the local paper deemed, as I 
afterwards heard, suflSlciently eccentric to furnish an item 
for his broad-slieet. 

I was awaiting the West-bound express (it was on the 
TJinon Pacific line), but as the trains, in consequence of 
the unprecedented snowstorms, were running, not hours 
but whole days late — there is only one train each way 
every twenty-four hours on the great trans- Continental line 
■ — I had to wait thirty hours at X . 



Wiiiter Camps and Indian Camps, 291 

While stijl busy witli my correspondence the East-bound 
train, that four days previously had started from California, 
arrived. It was the first "train that had been able to get 
thus far for the last forty-two hours^ and the huge structure, 
drawn bv two locomotives, as it slowly drew up at the 
station looked as if it had been to the I^orth Pole regions 
and had burrowed its way through mountains of snow. 
Huge icicles festooned the outside of the cars, and big 
drifts of snow had accumulated on the platforms in front 
of the doors. The three or four palace-cars were well 
filled, for the train bore also the passengers and mails of 
the preceding one, which got sno wed-up East of the 
Sierras. Dinner was awaiting them, and a motley, 
shivering crowd bustled into the ample dining-room of the 
hotel. It was of the usual cosmopolitan character : a 
couple of Japanese bigwigs on their way to join their 
Embassy, a few Chinese, jovial Californian millionaires, 
successful mining men who were going East in quest ol 
''a good time." Frenchmen, Germans, and ItalianSj 
thronged past dainty waxen-complexioned Americaines, 
carefully muffled up in furs and wiaps, as they stepped from 
the overheated interiors of the cars. 

Over the crowd towered three tall young Englishmen, 
who, less in a hurry than the rest, stalked through the throng 
in a leisurely nianner, with their hands stuck deep in the 
pockets of their loose shooting-coats. They were the first 
English faces I had seen for more than half a year. How 
familiar they seemed to me ; how unmistakably English 
the long stride, the low laugh when they caught sight of 
the black gong-belabouring demon at the door of the 
hotel ! Like the Pitcairn Islanders, who are so anxious to 
talk to a stranger that before he has tinie to ask how they 

u 2 



292 Camps m the Rockies, 

are, tliey will say '^ Quite well, thank you,^' I wished to 
jump up and shake hands. But they were entire strangers 
to me, and I had to be satisfied with as close an examina- 
tion of the exterior of my countrymen as could be 
crammed into a fleeting moment. None but those who have 
been in a similar position can know how your critical 
glance rests on the rough shooting-coat, on the broad- 
soled Glengarry stalking-shoes ; and the question. Who 
made that Tweed suit or those boots ? becomes one of 
moment. If the minute though unmistakable signs of 
workmanship convince you that the article in question 
is of London make, a smile of recognition mantles on 
your face. It does not take so much, after all, to bring 
out the mellow sides of human nature ! Six months of 
a lonely life far from countrymen's faces will suffice to 
metamorphose the angry scowl, called up by your discover- 
ing that the man tripping up the Club-steps in front of 
you wears unmentionables of precisely the same pattern 
as yours, into a beaming smile of welcome. 

While the passengers were dining, a gang of men was 
set to work to free the train of its load of ice and snow. 
In twenty minutes shovels and brooms had cleared off the 
white shroud, and the magnificent palace-cars shone forth 
in all their pristine grandeur of plate glass, polished metal, 
highly varnished wood, the outside shell of a luxurious 
velvet, mahogany, and silver-mounted interior. What a 
crass contrast did not the flimsy mushroom "city" of 
matchboard houses, uncouthly new, grotesquely tasteless, 
afford, as it lay there snow- buried and hurricane-swept in a 
desolate gorge on the great desert steppes 6000 feet over 
the sea, hardly more than ten years back the home of 
the cayote wolf and of the rattler. Two strips of steel had 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps, 293 

not only built the houses, but raised the desert sand-dune- 
girt hollow to the dignity of a wayside station on the great 
iron route circumnavigating the globe. 

Slow and stately the two great massive monsters and their 
load glided out from the station ; and as I watched the 
train swiftly disappear in the gathering gloom of the 
winter's afternoon, which sunk dull and grey on the unpic- 
turesque and unreal scene before and around me, the mighty 
force of man^s most wonderful invention came back to me 
with redoubled irapressiveness. My backwood philosophis- 
ing was presently disturbed by the courteous station-master, 
with whom I had struck up a cigar friendship. He looked 
upon steam and its power in a more practical light. ** Big 
money on board that train, sir ; 'r'kon not a cent less than 
twenty millions in dust, bones, and flesh.''' That ^^ dust ^' 
meant gold dust or bullion, I knew ; but " bones and flesh ^* 
were a mystery I0 me, which was presently cleared up 
without my being obliged to resort to questions, by being 

informed that Mr. C , a verj^ wealthy New Yorker, 

had defuncted in San Francisco, and his body was being 
'* shipped home ;" while three noted but live San Francisco 
millionaires were speeding eastwards — '' filling the bill 
consisting of dust four, bones Ave, and flesh eleven 
millions." 

As I take a short retrospective glance at those first days 
back in civilization, let the latter be even that of the 
Walkerhouse Hotel at SaltLake City — than which, however, 
I know worse places — I become more and more convinced 
of the usefulness of man now and again returning to a 
savage state. Quite aside of its rejuvenescent effects, which, 
on returning to your fellow beings, endow the vapid 
pleasures of ciNilized existence with the attractions the 



294 Camps in the Rockies. 

tuck-shop had for you when still a schoolboy — though not 
unlike the sixth-form prefect whose recently donned toga 
mrilis obliges him to eat his cake with the air with which 
we now take a Podophyllin pill — aside, I say, of all this, 
there are some downright practical results to be recorded by 
the traveller on his return from the wilds. 

The trite old saying, No mmi is a hero to his valet de 
chamhre, is never more true than in the West, where the 
valet has necessarily very multifarious duties, and uncom- 
fortably many opportunities of making himself intimately 
acquaiuted with his master^s vileness of temper and other 
unflattering characteristics. If the valet ia worth his salt, 
he will, as the daily exigencies of a very rough life 
afford him ever-recurring chances, push himself into the 
confidence of his lord, till finally . the robustly practical 
underling is boss of the city-worn swell— of course only 
metaphorically speaking, for I need hardly say I am here 
referring to the case of master and valet being personified 
in one and the same individual. 

By turning temporarily a semi-savage you realize how 
civilization was gradually built up. As you look at the 
copper-coloured aborigines of JN'orth America, whose customs 
withal remind you of those of the Scythians as described 
by Herodotus, and you detect that the skin garments in 
which they are wrapt are fastened around them by precisely 
the same piimitive thongs that hold together similar gar- 
ments in which John the Baptist is clothed in Carlo 
Crivelli's great altarpiece painted more than four centuries 
ago, your inductive acumen notes that the red man has 
not yet reached that stage which makes pockets a necessity. 
Presently you discover, at the farther expenditure of joxxv 
ingenuity, that these self-same pockets of which for many 



Winter Camps and Indian Camps. 295 

centuries our race has made use, are, in reality, nothing 
but the savage^s bags sewn on to the garments of our 
maturer understanding. 

Lord Duuraven, in one of his most attractively-written 
papers onthe West, very truly rem arks, '^it is the clothes that 
make the man/' at least the man with whom our civilization 
has made us acquainted — '* that the gentility of most men is 
contained in their shirt collars/' Nothing will prove this 
more indisputably than a temporary relapse to semi- 
savagery in the wilds of the West, for it will show you that 
your hunter or your guide, or the next best cowboy, can 
under equalizing circumstances look decidedly more the 
gentleman than you, who have taken to a wild Kfe only 
temporarily. 

Of the more practically useful results let me mention, 
that while in your wild life you learn to do and to go with- 
out the most essential necessaries of your former luxurious 
existence, you realize how inflated are man's daily wants. 
When that valet of yours has once got the whip hand, or, 
to use a Westernisra, has got the " bulge " of you, it will 
amuse you to observe how, as your journey extends from 
day to day, that too much of a job grows more frequent; and 
finally, when you do pull yourself up at the more than com- 
monly outrageous neglect of some lifelong habit, you smile 
at your hero, and place a mark of approbation against 
Montesquieu's maxim, that what you can do yourself, you 
will do best. 



296 Camps i7i the Rockies^ 



CHAPTER XI. 

CAMPS IN THE CANYONS OF THE COLORADO RIVER. 

History of the Colorado and its exploration — First white explorers— 
Their perils — Our expedition — First view of the Flaming Gorge 
— A winter day in the Canyons— Grand surroundings — Horse- 
shoe Canyon — Geological speculations. 

Unlike the otlier great natural wonders of the ]N"ortli 
American continent, the Niagara Falls, the Yosemite 
Valley, the Yellowstone Park^ the great Kentucky Caves — 
one and all the scene of a revolting trade in the charms 
of nature — there is yet left one in the Far West grander 
than the rest, which happily is not likely ever to become 
the vested property of a gang of 'cute Yankee guides, 
touts, and that ilk. I mean the famous canyons 
formed by the Colorado River. To-day these wonderful 
gorges, occupyiDg at intervals more than 1000 miles 
of the course of the Colorado, and formed by walls 
which in some places reach a height of 6200 feet, are 
undoubtedly by far the deepest and the longest known ; 
and, in view of certain signs in the geological formation 
of the as yet perfectly unexplored portions of the 
Himalayas, it is not likely, so authorities affirm, that the 
only locality where this American natural wonder might 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River, 297 

find a match can boast of fissures of as great or greater 
profundity. 

Before I speak of a visit of exploration I paid to these 
canyons at a somewhat unusual season, namely, in 
midwinter, I would desire to revert shortly to the chief 
events in the recent history of this most interesting river. 
The Government of the United States, displaying a 
characteristic energy in the scientific exploration of the 
Western Territories — recognizing from the first the im- 
portant influence of such work upon the early development 
of the mineral and other riches of these vast domains — 
made the thorough exploration of the Colorado River the 
subject of one of its most interesting official reports. 
These documents, displaying to an uncommon degree 
painstaking zeal and deep scientific research^ are, as is 
well known, models of their kind, and have long become 
standard works of high scientific value. The one I would 
specially refer to is practically in two parts^ the first for a 
general, the second for a scientific public ; while the 
copious and remarkably truthful illustrations, mostly 
from photographs, bring some of the wonderful sights in 
a Kfelike manner before the reader. 

Captain, now Major, J. W. Powell, who compiled the 
first portion of the report, was the leader of the four 
G^t^ernment expeditions that explored the Colorado River 
country in the years 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872. ^nd 
to him and his men belonjx the honour of being: the first 
human buings, at least in our times, who passed alive 
tlirough the whole length of the canyons. Considering 
that the interior of most of the gloomy gorges was entirely 
unknown, that Indian and trapper tales teeming with 
horrors far eclipsing those of Dante^s *' Inferno " had 



298 Camps in the Rockies, 

woven round tliem a halo of unknown peril, the feat waa 
decidedly*a remarkable one. Once within the stupendous 
rocky gates of the first canyon, the bold explorers em- 
barked in light boats which had been transported across 
1500 miles of desert, well knowing that return would be 
impossible, and that to escape on foot was next to being so, 
and would only be feasible at certain places few and far 
apart. Carried along by the strong current of the stream, 
they passed many weeks in the wonderful labyrinth of 
gorges, hemmed in by walls often 6000 or 6000 feet high, 
never sure that the next hour might not be their last ; 
for cataracts or whirlpools might engulf them, or rapids 
wreck their boats, leaving them, even if they did escape 
with their lives, to die a lingering death by starvation — - 
a fate of which report furnished several instances. It 
was generally believed, too, that the river, like many 
others in America, was lost underground for several 
hundred miles, while other accounts told of great falls, 
whose roaring could be heard on the distant mountain 
summits. 

Altogether, the first expedition which, on May 27, 1869, 
started from Green Eiver City in four boats, with provisions 
for six months, was one to which was attached more than 
usual interest, more than usual peril. 

A glance at the map of the North American Continent 
shows us that the Colorado is one of the longest rivers in 
the West, its course being over 2000 miles in length. It 
drains some 300,000 square miles ; and few rivers have 
more eventful or diversified courses, none offer richer 
fields for scientific research. The Colorado, bearing in its 
upper course another name, i.e. Green River, a circum- 
sfance occurring very frequently in the West^ has ita 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River, 299 

source, as we have heard, on the Western slopes of the 
Big Wind River Mountains. After flowing for about 100 
miles through vast stretches of Alpine forest, which few 
white men have ever penetrated^ it soon leaves the upper 
mountain region, to commence its southerly course across 
the treeless foothills of the Rocky Mountains, over the 
arid wastes of the Plains, through the dreaded bad- 
lands of Wyoming and Utah, where the Union Pacific 
line crosses it, till it reaches the first canyon on the 
boundaries of the State of Colorado. Here begins the 
most wonderful portion of its course. For more than 
1000 miles the waters have cut, at shorter or longer 
intervals, deep gorges, varying in length all the way_, from 
a mile or two to two hundred and seventeen, that being the 
extent of the longest canyon. Their character, owing to 
a great variety of geological reasons, differs much in general 
aspect. While some are excessively narrow fissures, and 
from 1200 to 6200 feet in depth, others exhibit on a most 
gigantic scale various types of formation, brought about, 
one and all, by erosion, or, as we might call it, the carving- 
out power of water. The whole country of the Colorado, 
as Powell remarks, is a history of the war of the elements, 
to beat back the encroaching advances of land upon ocean 
depths.^ 

After leaving the last canyon the river reaches the hot, 
arid Plains of Arizona and New Mexico, and enters upon 
the last third of its course, its level but little above the 
Pacific, till, finally, the limpid mountain waters, long 

' As I am no geologist, and hence am not a partisan of either tho 
great Camjps of erosionists and their opponents, I simply quote the 
words of the two chief authorities who have recorded their views in 
Powell's report. 



300 Camps in the Rockies. 

metamorphosed into turbid mud-stained floods, empty into 
the Gulf of California. 

The mouth of the Colorado has been known for two and 
a half centuries. Fernando Alarcon discovered it a.d. 
1539, when, sent by the Viceroy of Spain, he explored 
the Gulf of California. The first ascent from the mouth 
up to the commencement of the canyons- — about 620 miles 
in length, the only portion of the river that is navigable — ■ 
was made not twenty-five years back (1858) by a Lieute- 
nant Ives, who explored, for the Government, the lower 
Colorado. He reached by boat a point some eighty miles 
below the Grand Canyon, and being unable to proceed 
farther in his craft, he organized a land expedition, by 
which means he and his companions caught sight, from 
above, of the stupendous abyss of the great gorge, at the 
bottom of which ran the Colorado, a sight " which rooted 
them to the «> round in profound wonderment." Three or 
four years before, the upper canyons had been the scene of 
a remarkable exploit. It was a descent attempted by two 
prospectors (r old-seekers) who had penetrated into the 
then still perfectly unknown regions of South-Eastern 
Utah, where they had been attacked by Indians. Taking 
refuge in one of the uppermost canyons of the river which 
happened to be in close vicinit}^, these two men, White 
and Strobe by name, rather than attempt a retreat through 
country beset by Indians, where worse than death awaited 
them, constructed a raft of such wood and timber as they 
could get hold of, and with a very short allowance of pro- 
visions dared the unknown dangers of a descent through 
the canyon. Four days after entering the head canj^on, 
while descending a rapid, the raft was upset, Strobe 
drowned, and aU provisions, blankets, and arms lost* 



Camps in the Canyo7is of the Colorado River. 301 

White^ who had clung to the raft, managed to right it, 
and continued his journey alone, amid great peril from 
rapids and whirlpools, hemmed in by the huge walls of 
some of the deepest canyons of the river. Ten days more 
it took him to reach a creek in the formation of continuous 
gorges, and here he found a few miserable adobe huts, 
tenanted by half-breed Mexicans. White during the ten 
days had eaten food but once, and then only some fruit 
pods and leaves he had gathered from bushes growing 
along the bank. Report mentions that he escaped on this 
occasion with his life, but, like many others of his brother 
prospectors, was killed the following year by his old foes. 

In 1855 a similar attempt was made under like circum- 
stances^ but by a numerically larger party. They were 
also wrecked, and with the exception of one Ashley and 
another man, all were drowned, Captain Powell discover- 
ing fourteen years later some of the remains of the wreck 
and provisions. Ashley's name will not be forgotten, for 
Powell, when christening the various hitherto nameless 
rapids and canyons, named the spot where the party of 
bold prospectors came to grief Ashley Falls. 

But the Government expedition also met with many 
disastrous adventures, for, although the reported disappear- 
ance of the river and the rumoured presence of high falls 
were found to be mythical, yet the many rapids were 
of a highly dangerous nature, entailing constant portages, 
several shipwrecks, the entire loss of one boat and its load, 
the partial loss of the contents of the other three, and the 
depriving the explorers of a great portion of their stores, 
provisions, and instruments. 

But now, after these lengthy introductory remarks, let 
me speak of my own visit to the upper canyons ; and 



302 Camps in the Rockies. 

thougli my expedition was framed on a far more modesi; 
scale, and I saw but a portion of the wonders of the can- 
yons, I yet hope— considering that, so far as I know, abso- 
lutely nothing has ever been published in England 
concerning this wonderful gorge land — that my notes may 
prove of passing interest. The reader has learnt that the 
exceptional severity of the winter prevented the execution 
of my original plan of following the course of the Green or 
Coloiado River, after leaving the Big Wind River and 
Sierra Soshone country. The expected and usu^l spell of 
fine winter weather about January was that year con- 
spicuous by its absence, and I had to give up all idea of 
carrying out my plans in the way I had intended. 

What otherwise could not have been accomplished, the 
kind assistance and exceedingly-appreciated hospitality 

of Captain Y , of the Scouts, at Fort Bridger,^ enabled 

me to undertake. About the middle of February, 1881, 
two English friends and myself started from Salt Lake 
City for the Fort, where everything was in readiness for 
the expedition. So the following day a small caravan, 
consisting of two or three huge waggons, a small detach- 
ment of troopers, and some other camp-followers, alto- 
gether quite a formidable party, " pulled out " for Henry's 
Fork, a tributary of the Colorado, joining it just before 
the first canyon. After a weary journey over the bleak 
and desolate regions of the 7nauvaises terres, where heavy 
snowfalls played our little party many awkward tricks, 
obliging us on several occasions to break roads with the 

2 Fort Bridger has only recently (in 1880) been re-occupied by 
United States troops, on account of the Ute Indian outbreak in 1879, 
and the unsettled state of the country since. Previous to that it waa 
far a couple of years unoccupied by the military. 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River, 303 

enow-shovel and pickaxe^ we reached, on the fourth day 
from our starting-point, the banks of the Colorado. 

I must pause here to explain to the reader the reason 
why, contrary to all preceding explorations of the river 
and canyons, I chose the depth of a very severe winter to 
accomplish my object. Hitherto, the canyons had been 
visited only in boats during the summer season ; but as I 
was quite unable to provide such craft — a time-robbing 
and very expensive undertaking in the wilderness — I based 
my plans upon the supposition that the river would be 
ice-bound, and I would then be enabled to thread my way 
through the canyons in a novel and expeditious manner. 
As such a thing had never been done before, at least as 
far as I could learn, and as the country through which 
the Colorado forms its chief canyons is entirely unpopu- 
lated and barren, I had no information whatever to go by 
as to whether such a proceeding were possible. My conjec- 
tures turned out, however, to be correct, for even the rapid 
current of the mountain stream could not resist the intense 
and long-continued cold. 

The first canyon is formed by the river breaking through 
the Unitah Range, one of the few branch chains of the 
Bocky Mountains running in a transverse direction, i.e, 
from East to West, at a point where it rises to elevations 
of nearly 14,000 feet. 

Eight at the head of this canyon, and at the foot of the 
very precipitous mountains, there is a stretch of meadow 
land. Here, isolated from the world, three old trappers, 
after turning squaw men, i.e. marrying Indian wives, had 
taken to raise their cattle in a patriarchal fashion, and 
their primitive log cabins and Indian lodges dotted the 
plain. From them, to my joy, I learnt that ako within 



304 Cmnps in the Rockies. 

the canyons, as far at least as one of them from curiosity 
had ventured to penetrate, the riyer was frozen. This was 
indeed goorl news, for, while I was sure that outside the 
canyons, where the river was comparatively shallow and 
broad, the ice would bear any weight, I was very doubtful 
of a similar state of things within the gorges, where 
the channel was considerably narrowed, the depth much 
greater, and the current naturally stronger, thus defying, 
as I previously feared, even Arctic cold to lay it in bonds. 
Close to the head canyon we pitched a permanent camp, 
where our waggon and extra stores could be left, while 
we made independent expeditions, hampered only with 
the most essential portion of our camping utensils, into 
the rock-arched gorges of the famous stream. The morning 
following our arrival was to witness our first introduction 
to the canyons. It was a bright, crisp, wind-still winter's 
morning, and at 8 a.m. when, after the usual contretemps 
in the saddling of fractious horses and packing of unwill- 
ing mules, we left camp, the thermometer marked in the 
shade one degree below zero. The vast, marvellously 
grotesque landscape of the bad-lands through which we 
had been travelling, and to which we were now about to 
bid good-bye, lay before us with a snow-endowed bril- 
liancy painful to the eye ; and when soon afterwards the 
sun topped the jagged ridge overhead, and the uniform 
pall of snow over which we were moving was lit up 
with refulgent brightness also unbearable to the eye, we 
had to halt in order to take those primitive but effective 
precautions against snow-blindness which are afforded by 
dabbing the face round the eye with a coat of gunpowder 
moistened with water. In due time we reached the enor- 
mous portals of the head canyon, the famous Flaming Gorge 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River. 305 

— so-called from the flaming orange and pink hue of the 
rocks confining it. Aglorioas sight burst on our ej-es on 
turning the sharp corner of the nearest buttress, and for 
the first time entrusting ourselves to the ice of the river. 
In solemn gloomy stillness the marvellous gorge lay before 
us, and though the clifis on both sides were not sheer 
precipices, but rather built up in terraced steps of gigantic 
magnitude, the wonderful colouring of the rocks gave 
the whole a weirdly beautiful charm. So narrow was the 
chasm, so close did the huge buttresses of rock, forming 
the portal between which we were standing, approach each 
other, that a very few steps into the interior, where a 
bend in the river occurs, sufficed to let the narrow entrance 
disappear entirely. The cliffs at this spot are not so much 
remarkable for their height (Major PowelFs measurement 
of them gives them a sheer altitude of 1200 feet), as 
for their grotesque formation and colour. It was about 
noon, and the sun, just climbing over the knifeback eastern 
ridge, cast slanting rays into the gloom and stillness of 
the gorge, lighting up with a glorious halo of vapoury 
light the bizarre array of pinnacles, turrets, and bold 
fantastic carvings imitating architectural forms, and 
suggesting rude but weird statuary, which lined the escarp- 
ment on the top of the Western cliffs. 

Before us lay a long vista of rock-hemmed river, far 
more like a broad, smooth Alpine road through a gigantic 
mountain defile than the emerald-tinted, smoothly-gliding 
Colorado of summer-time. A thin layer of snow covered 
the ice to a depth of an inch, while outside, on the plains 
and on the mountains, the snowy pall was at least eighteen 
inches deep. We were strung out in a long line some 
eight or nine men, and twice that number of horses and 

X 



3o6 Camps in the Rockies, 

pack-animals), and so impressive was the scene tliat for 
some time we proceeded in silence^ each busy with his own 
thoughts. Five hundred yards from the portals was a 
grove of gaunt, leafless cottonwoods, the last trees deserv- 
ing that name for many miles. I easily recognized in 
this spot the last camping-place of Major Powell before 
entering the canyons, then still quite unknown to them. 
As I picked my steps through the grove, where old signs 
of human presence apparently proved the correctness of 
my discovery, I could vividly picture to mj^self the 
thoughts that must have moved the breasts of the bold 
explorers as, on the eventful morning of May 30, 1869,. 
they pushed off in their boats, having before them about 
as intensely exciting a journey, as full of unknown dangers, 
as human mind can picture to itself. 

Warned by white man and by Indian, who foretold 
certain destruction, the little party must have left the 
spot with mingled feelings of keen anxiety and hope. 
An Indian chief, whom Powell had previously consulted 
respecting the possibility of passing through the canyons, 
had described to him an attempt made by some of his tribe 
to run the canyon in boats. " The rocks," he said, hold- 
ing his hands above his head, his arms vertical, and look- 
ing between them to heaven, ''the rocks h-e-a-p, h-e-a-p 
high ; the water go h-oo-wough^ h-oo- wough ; water-pony 
(boat) h-e-a-p-buck ; water catch 'em ; no see 'em Injuns 
any more ! No see 'em squaw any more ! No see 'em 
papoose (babies) any more ! " 

Very soon we came to the first rapids, the object of intense 
anxiety to Powell, for the waters plunged madly down 
among great rocks, and it was their, fiist experience with 
the dangers of the canyon. Now everything was bound in 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River, 307 

icy fetters^ though one could see, by the ven^- uneven nature 
of the surface, and by the huge blocks of ice that lay scat- 
tered about— evidently cast up before the whole was frozen 
over — that it cost the king of winter a very severe effort 
to subdue the unruly element. The rapids are not long, 
but there is an interesting feature connected with them, 
which I found repeated in most of the lower canyons. 

At the bottom of the rapid, where, as is to be supposed, 
the current is very strong, we observed a big green patch, 
and on approaching found it to be an open space in the ice. 
Standing on the brink of the hole, the latter about eight 
or ten feet square, you could see the green waters bubble 
and whirl beneath you ; and a stick of wood which I held 
down was swept away with great velocity. The hole, as 
could be seen from the hundreds of foot-tracks of game 
leading to and from it, was evidently a water-hole, kept 
open, T fancy, chiefly by the agency of beavers, whose 
numerous tracks, forming regular paths, had already 
attracted my attention. Whether this and other holes of 
like description were caused, to a certain extent, by warm 
springs, the action of the whirling waters, or whether 
exclusively the work of animals, I am unable to say. In 
the course of my subsequent exploration I certainly found 
that frequently these open spaces occurred at the foot of 
rapids. The ice was of prodigious thickness — between 
eighteen inches and two feet — and, when free from snow, 
of a beautiful green, a hue imparted to it of course by the 
colour of the water beneath. Now and again there 
would be a loud report, and a broad crack would run 
across the icy liighway, caused, I presume, by a sinking 
of the water-level after the freezing of tlie river, leaving 
a minute hollow space beneath our pavement. Harmless 

X 2 



3o8 Camps in the Rockies 

in itself, it frightened the horses and mules very con- 
siderably. The first two canyons are short — half a mile 
and a mile, perhaps — and after each the river broadens 
considerably, while the banks decrease in height and 
steepness. Our goal for the first day was an old log cabin, 
erected, I believe, years before by Ashley, when trapping 
for beaver a mile or so up the first tributary creek we 
came to, and to which our ranchemen friends had advised 
us to direct our steps. We reached the solitary spot 
towards evening by making what in local parlance is 
called a " cut ofi'"'* across an intervening ridge of moun- 
tains. Here, close to the deeper canyons, we found a most 
desirable locality to pitch camip for a thorough exploration 
of the whole country. The log cabin, a mere crumbling 
wreck, was of greater value as a fuel-producing than as a 
shelter- giving asylum. My companions being more inte- 
rested with other features of the country than with the 
canyons, I was left a good deal to myself when exploring, 
in the course of several days, for mile upon mile, the 
beauties of the Horseshoe, the Kingfisher, the Swallow, 
and Red Canyons. 

Perhaps the most remarkable of the upper canyons is the 
Horseshoe, a name given to it by Powell, on account of its 
likeness to the letter U, the upright lines being much 
elongated. Prior to reaching the canyon, the river crosses 
a comparativel}^ level stretch of highland, when suddenly, 
instead of pursuing its course across the flat, where nothing 
obstructs its course, it turns sharply to the left, and, at a 
right angle to its previous direction, enters the mountains, 
cutting for itself a channel 1800 or 2000 feet in depth. 
After proceeding for more than a mile towards the very 
heart of the chain, it wheels back, and, after a curve, 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River. 309 

makes a straight cut towards the level land it left, at a 
point not half a mile from the one where it quits tlie 
mountains. I am told that a like instance is unknown to 
topographers, and to me it certainly seemed a most per- 
plexing exhibition of Nature's arbitrary power.^ 

It was a beautiful winter's day when I explored this 
and the following canyons. Alone, with some necessaries 
packed on my Indian pony, I threaded my way through 
the gorges. The walls rapidly increase in height, but the 
ej^e, unaccustomed to measure their altitudes, hardly 
detects the difference between 2000 and 3000 feet or 
more. In some places the channel is very narrow, so that 
the winterly sun, excepting about half an hour at mid-day, 
remained invisible. It had snowed during the night, and 
a thin film of snow that had reached this depth covered 
the ice, enabling me to track the numerous beavers, and 
also a bear, who had been tempted from his winter lair 
by the warm bright day. Of the latter, however, I did not 
catch sight, for he left the main canyon by a side creek, 
and it was impossible to follow him. With the beavers, 
however, it was different, for I scared up two old " dogs " 
(male beaver), and in the rock-bound canyon, in the 
absence of water-holes, no other escape was left to them 
but a rapid flight on the ice, affording me the rare chance 
of watching their movements outside their proper element. 
Clumsy and heavy as the animal seems on land, the rapidity 
of its movements when on ''the jump '^ are doubly wonderful. 
The second one offered too tempting a chance for a shot; 
but, before I had time to get my Express from the horn 

3 I since hear that, althougli not on such a grand scale, the abrupt 
and acute cuts in the bed of the Zariibesi above the Victoria Fails, afford 
an almost equally wonderful instance of this apparent frtak of nature 



3IO Camps in the Rockies, 

of my saddle — my pony, used to this kind of independent 
work, was quietly following me, with the reins hanging 
knotted over his neck — a series of most grotesque leaps of 
very flat trajectory had taken it nearly 200 yards off, so 
that when I did fire the miss was a clean one, the race 
being left to the fugitive beaver and my ricocheting bullet, 
while the echo, of appalling intensity, and of duration never 
before heard by me, went rolling and crashing backwards 
and forwards through the gorge, breaking with rude 
violence the silence of eternity. 

Beavers and a couple of large eagles, who soared at 
great height over the river, were the only living things I 
encountered in this and the other main canyons. Of 
Bighorn, the ibex of the Rockies, of which Major Powell, 
in his summer explorations, saw numbers when the forma- 
tion of the walls was such as to leave them a footing, I 
discovered none till, towards the end of my stay in this 
part of the country, I one day saw an ojd ram in a side 
canyon. He had a good head, and his meat would have 
been a very welcome change in the camp diet, but the 
nature of the ground precluded the possibility of approach. 
The last I saw of him was on the very top of the canyon 
walls, where, clearly outlined against the sky, he occupied 
a protruding ledge overlooking, and actually overhanging, 
the giddy depth of the gorge below him. Here he stood 
for a long time watching, I presume, with contemptuous 
glance, the movements of the designful pigmy who 
dared to invade his realm. I have no doubt that in 
summer, when the cool shade of the canyons offers an 
irresistible attraction. Bighorn are very plentiful. 'In the 
centre of the next canyon after the Horseshoe I found 
a broad, open space, in this instance caused evidently 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River. 311 

by one or more warm springs, The gorge was here very 
narrow — sixty yards, perhaps, intervening between the 
opposite walls, which rose perpendicularly from the ice. 
The open space, where yon could see the green water rushing 
swiftly along, and in beautiful contrast to the snowy pall 
around it, very nearly took up the whole breadth, leaving 
a narrow band of ice not more than ten feet wide on either 
side. Being somewhat doubtful if the ice would carry me 
and my horse, I reversed the order of precedence, my 
pony taking the /;«s, which he did with a cautious diffi- 
dence by no means usual with Indian-bred '^ cayuses/^ 
A slight cracking — at the moment, however, of uncom- 
fortable import — was all that happened, and we got 
across this and another similar spot in safety. 

Close to the mouth of this short, and, as I believe, as 
yet nameless canyon, a picturesque tributary *' creek " 
flows into the Colorado. Its waters have riven a stupen- 
dous fissure in the mighty walls of the main canyon, 
which here widens out very considerably, forming a 
gigantic amphitheatre of the grandest beaut}^ Right at 
the mouth of the creek, formed, 1 presume, by the rocky 
debris washed down by its waters, there is whut Powell 
calls a '' canyon park.'' Fancy a patch, some 200 acres 
in extent, of comparatively level garden-land dotted with 
graceful groves of trees — pine and cottonwood predomi- 
nating — swept on three sides by a curving reach of the 
river, the whole shut in by stupendous walls 2000 feet 
high, through which, to the right and left, open gigantic 
portals, showing on one side vistas of mountain highlands 
"vvith stretches of cedar forests, on the other, the gloomy 
depth of another gorge. In summer, when vegetation 
lends further charm to it, this scene must be of surpassing 



312 Camps in the Rockies, 

beamy, and the name which Powell has given it — King- 
fisher Park, from the number of those beautiful birds he 
found playing about — is one happily chosen. The emerald- 
green of the water, the darker hue of the foliage, the 
far-away blue of the heaven, and the streaks of crimson 
and vermilion that ran across the vast walls in startling 
confusion — what palette but that of I^ature coiild repro- 
duce more harmonious tones ? 

So impressed was I with the grandeur of this spot, that 
a day or two later 1 revisited it at night, when the fitful 
rays of a bright moon shed their weird charm over it. The 
mellow beams starting through one of the stupendous 
portals, lighting up only portions of the amphitheatre, cast 
long shadows of the jagged and pinnacled brow of the 
cliff, and of the serrated buttresses forming the gateway, 
over the white pall on the river. The majestic silence, 
the twinkling stars overhead, the quiet of Eternity that 
seemed to rest over all, combined to make it one of the most 
singularly impressive night-scenes I have ever enjoyed. 

Four or five miles below this canyon I passed Beehive 
Point, a dome-shaped buttress of rock, on the bare face 
and sides of which little cells have been excavated by the 
action of the water. In these pits thousands of the beau- 
tiful American clifl'-swallows [Petrochilidon kmifrons), whose 
compact villages clinging to the steep faces of rocks I had 
noticed in most parts of the uplands, have built their 
nests, thus giving the whole the appearance of a colossal 
beehive, though the swarm of b.:es to which Powell, who 
gave it this name, likened the fleetly-winged army, existed 
of course, at this season of the year only in my imagina- 
tion. Opposite this point another of the numerous amphi- 
theatre-shaped widenings of tlie canyon occurs. Here, a 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River. 3 1 3 

little lower again, the walls attain a lieiglit of some 1500 
feetj consisting of gigantic steps of sandstone, each with a 
face of naked red rock and a glacis clothed with the 
stunted growth of gnarled cedars, fringed by a belt of 
snow, giving the whole a quaintly stratified appearance ; 
bands of red, green, and white following each other at 
regular intervals. A day or two later I visited the lower 
canyons, beginning with the gorge rendered memorable 
by the Ashley Falls. The river here is very narrow, the 
right wall vertical for many hundred feet, and then sloping 
off; the left towering to a great height. At the foot of 
the latter there is a huge mass of debris, a portion of which 
has evidently fallen into the river. Indeed, one or two 
gigantic boulders occupy the centre of the channel, and 
here the waters (so Powell says) tumble down about 
twelve feet, and are broken again by the smaller rocks 
into a rapid below. The very confused mass of slabs of 
ice, rent into hundreds of different - shapes, which lay in 
piles about, and the partly open, partly closed condition of 
the river at this point, made it difficult to recognize 
the falls from Powell's description, and it was nearly 
impossible to make a correct estimate of the height. 
By keeping to one side, and striking the river again 
immediatel}^ beneath the cascade, I avoided passing over 
them — a feat that would have been impossible for my 
horse. 

On the same day I ascended the walls of the canyon at 
a point close to the place where Powell reports having 
done the same The climb was a stiff one, but by lead- 
ing him carefully, I even got my very sure footed pony, 
who climbed like a cat, up the excessively precipitous 
slope. On reaching the top I found that the landscape had 



314 Camps in the Rockies. 

lost a good deal of its mauvaises terres character. There were 
a number of tiny valleys, each containing separate patches, 
some very extensive, of statelj^ pines, reminding me much 
of Alpine scenery. In summer the country must be ex- 
ceedingly beautiful_, in rare contrast to the arid stretches 
north and south of it ; and Powell gives a charming de- 
scription of it. Now it seemed the chosen retreat of 
great numbers of the graceful Muledeer. In the course 
of an afternoon's ramble I roughly counted over 600. 
They ran in small bands of forty or iifty head. It 
was just the time they shed their horns, and several 
bucks I scared up ran off with only one antler on their 
heads. In the far distance I also detected with my glass 
a band of Wapiti, who were feeding on a high table-land. 
Eound the high sandstone ^' buttes '^ that cropped up in 
every direction, I also found many signs of Bighorn, 
though I saw none in the flesh during the hour or two 
that I stopped there. In summer I should say there 
must be great numbers, for the country, wholly Alpine in 
its character, is well suited to Bighorn. The altitude of 
the country is very high, scarcely below 7000 feet. I 
was rather surprised at the presence of so much game 
in the dead of winter ; but I suppose the wreath of 
high peaks that surrounds this collection of natural parks 
shelter it from the high winds which animals dread more 
than snow. Powell, who visited this portion on two or 
three occasions, speaks of the country as being full of 
every kind of game — grizzlies, wolverines, and mountain 
lions included. Red Canyon, which I only explored at 
the beginning, is twentj^-five miles long. An expedition 
on foot acros3 a high range took me to a point from 
whence I saw the mouth. It was, however, impossible to 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River. 3 1 5 

get down, as the sides were more or less sheer precipices, 
2500 feet in height. 

The following day I managed, by going a little further, 
to find a place where a person who is not giddy could get 
down. A scramble, in which I sacrificed an essential 
portion of my unmentionables, brought me back to the 
gloomy depth. It was my last day in the canyons of the 
Colorado, and, much to my regret, I had to turn my back 
on the unseen v/onders of the Lodore, the Marble, and the 
other great canyons, to which I was comparatively so 
close. Our provisions were already running very low, 

and, besides this, Captain Y — had to return to Fort 

Bridger with the escort But so attracted was I by what 
I had seen of these wo ;derful gorges, and also by some of 
the features of the surrounding country, that 1 hope to 
revisit them at an early date, and penetrate their whole 
length, for I know of no more enjoyable manner of spend- 
ing a summer, combining the best of sport with the plea- 
sures incidental to boat travel of such a novel character.^ 
But far greater than the rest must be the attractions of 
the Grand Canj^on, where all the various features of the 
dozens of preceding gorges are repeated on a .yet grander 
scale. Powell, when writing of the morning when they 
started into the Grand Canyon, says, in his grapic way, 
''We are three quarters of a mile in the depth of the 
earth. We have an unknown distance yet to run, an 
unknown river yet to explore. What falls there are we 

4 The boats used by Powell were built by a Chicago builder. I 
should certainly say that this would be the most expedient for a 
similar expedition. In any case there ought to be two boats, one 
lighter than the otlj er, to act as pioneer boat, a proceeding impera- 
tively necessary in many places. 



3 1 6 Camps in the Rockies, 

know not, what rocks beset the channel, what walls rise 
over the river we know not. With some eagerness, with 
some anxiety, and some misgiving, we enter the vast 
canyon, and are carried along by the swift water through 
walls which rise from its very edge/' The first half-hour 
they made six miles, but soon low falls and bad rapids 
retarded their progress, and a bad wreckage was avoided by 
a mere wonder. A thunderstorm overtook them in the 
depth of the canyon, and three days afterwards one of the 
boats went over a fall, but the man who was in it was saved. 
The Grrand Canyon is by far the longest, and also the last. 
It lies in three Territories — Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, 
the latter Territory being distinguished by the most 
weirdly bizarre formation that can be seen in any portion 
of the globe. The illustration I append gives one but a faint 
idea of the reality. At its mouth, where the Rio Yirgen 
flows into the Colorado, there is a small settlement, Call- 
ville, up to which from its mouth the main stream is 
navigable. Here, on August 31, 1869, the first explora- 
tion ended. Three months and seven days were the 
adventurous travellers going through the gorges, a journey 
as keenly interesting as any our much-travelled-over 
globe afibrds. 

Another interesting feature of the lower canyons, 
especially the Marble and Grrand, are the remains of 
human habitations which belonged to an extinct race, 
enjoying a far higher degree of civilization than the 
present inhabitants of the desert country around — i.e. 
roving tribes of JSTavajo Indians. The first house of these 
cliff-dwellers discovered by Powell was on a narrow shell 
of rock about 200 feet over the water, on the face of the 
wall. The building was once probably three stories high, 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River, 317 

the lowest story is yet almost intact^ while the second 13 
much broken down. The walls are of stone laid in mortar 
withmuch regularity. Round the house on the face of 
the cliff were numerous rude etchings and hieroglyphics. 
Fifteen miles below a second group of these buildings was 
discoyered, and here a " kiva/' or underground chamber 
in which religious ceremonies were performed, was found 
in good condition. The approach to these dwellings seems 
to have been by ladders or narrow stairways cut into the 
rock by hand. They usually occupy the most inaccessible 
cliffs, and are provided with other means of natural defence 
against the incursions of enemies. For the probable origin 
of these canyon cliff-dwellings we have to go back to the 
Sixteenth Century _, to the time of the first settlement of 
Mexico by the Spanish. Many expeditions were sent, 
though none of them returned, into the Far Western 
country now comprised in Arizona and New Mexico by 
tlie greedy European conquerors, who evinced a monstrous 
lust for gold and an energetic partiality for saving souls. 
Powell mentions one of these heathen hieroglyphic designs. 
On one side of the picture there is a lake, and near by 
stands a priest pouring water on the head of a native, 
on the other side an Indian with a rope round his throat : 
lines run from these two groups to a central figure, a man 
with a beard and in full Spanish dress. The interpretation 
given to it by Powell is : " Be baptized as this saved 
heathen ; or be hanged as that damned one.^' 

In view of the manifold as yet very hastily, if at all, 
examined objects of prominent interest, it is somewhat 
singular that more than a decade has been allowed to pasa 
without a repetition of Powell's trip.^ 

* If my feeble attempt to do justice to a most enticing subject has, 



o 



1 8 Camps in the Rockies, 



A word or two before I close must be devoted to tbe 
questions anent some topographical points. I have said 
that the Colorado offers an exceptionally rich field for 
geological research. To a person stud3dng the physical 
geography of the country without a knowledge of its 
geology, it would seem very strange that the river should 
,cut through vast chains of mountains, when, apparently, 
it might have passed around them, on one side or the 
other, where the mountains are but hills, existing valleys 
off^3ring ready channels. The first explanation suggesting 
itself is, that it followed previously formed fissures through 
the different ranges. But this, the modern school of geolo- 
gists tells us, would be incorrect, for proofs are abundant 
that the river cut its own cbannel, that the canyons are 
so-called gorges of erosion. If, again, we ask, why did 
not the stream avoid these huge obstructions altogether, 
rather than pass through them ? the answer is, that the 
river was there before the mountains were formed ; not 
before the rocks of which the mountains are composed 
were deposited, but before the formations were, to quote 
Major Powell, "folded so as to make mountain ranges. 

Professor ^^ewberry, who first examined this region, 
in his report on the geology of the country, observes, 
concerning the creation of the great gorges : " Having 
constantly this question in mind, and examining with all 
possible care the structure of the great canyons which we 
entered, I everywhere found evidence of the exclusive action 
of water in their formation. The opposite sides of even the 
deepest chasms showed perfect correspondence of strati- 
fication, and nowhere displacement,^^ and this would of 

by chance, instilled the requisite spirit of adventure into any of my 
readers, I shall be glad to communicate with hirn or them. 



Camps in the Canyons of the Colorado River, .-^iq 

course prove other natural forces not to have been at work. 
Professor Hall has advanced some interesting speculations 
concerning the future of the Colorado river canyons. As 
is known, he maintains that in the future of the Niagara 
Falls there will come a time when the great fall can no 
longer be maintained by the undermining of the limestone 
buttress from which it leaps, and that it will be replaced 
by a rapid, a stage in which two of the most interesting 
canyons of the Colorado, namely, Grand and Marble, are 
at present. In these two gorges a descent of 1600 feet is 
accomplished within a comparatively short distance entirely 
by rapids, where formerly, probably, more or less, extensive 
cataracts took their place. The incidental discovery made 
by Powell during his expedition, namely, that, in canyons 
through soft strata, the river ran invariably mucli 
smoother and quicker than in those of hard rock, seems to 
bear out this speculation. 



320 Camps in the Rockies. 



CHAPTER XII, 

CAMPS IN COWBOYLAND. 

The stock-raising business in the West — Its aspect and history- 
How it was conducted, and how it is now managed — Different 
manners of starting into it— On trail--Round-up— The Cowboy's 
life — What a man most needs — Hospitaiit}'- of the West. 

As the stock-raising business in the West is deservedly 
attracting a good deal of attention among the more 
adventurous class of our educated young men, I am 
tempted to dwell with some detail on its chief features. 
The stockman's life out West is one offering certain 
attractive inducements to the English character; for not 
only does his vocation bring with it an infinite amount of 
exercise on the bright breezy Plains, in a temperate zone, 
in the most delightfully bracing climate in the world, but 
it is a life where manly sport is an ever-present element. 
The cowboy and his horse are one. The interest he takes 
in his equine friends is not of the vicious nature to which 
our national attachment to the equine race has been 
degraded in our own land ; it is healthier in all respects. 
If the young settler goes far enough West, shooting of 
the best kind can be combined with the duties of his 
life. Wapiti and Bighorn are often either a day's or 



Camps in Cowboy land, 321 

a two clays' ride, and an encounter with tine dreaded 
grizzly roaming freely over the uplands, will test his 
nerves. It is a rough life; iiideed, coming straight from 
his English club existence, it will at first, perhaps, repel 
him. But the roughness has its good sides, a short ex- 
perience generally sufficing to weed out the effeminate and 
unmanly. With the exception of Australia, which I do not 
know, I opine that in no country will the traveller see, in 
the most out-of-the-way nooks and corners, such happy 
faces, such sterling manliness, as among stockmen in 
districts where they are often several months without 
seeing a human being. 

Even much further East, in Iowa and other central 
states, where civilization has long subdued wild nature, we 
find some Yevj happy types of small English colonies. 
Thus, to give a well-known instance, we have the Le Mars 
Colony in Iowa. " St. Karnes," the able correspondent of 
the Field, has given a pleasant picture of it. With much 
truth, he likens the sight to a metropolitan picnic in a 
provincial town. The streets are filled with English ladies, 
and English gentlemen, and English children, and English 
babies. The young fellows have about them the unmis- 
takable hall-mark of the public schools, the universities, 
the services ; and the hard work that is performed bears 
more the air of pleasurable picnic roughing-it than 
genuine toil. No caste is lost by the young man who, 
dissatisfied with the slower returns of farming, engages in 
any of the numerous occupations — we should call them 
trades — of a new colony. The auctioneer, the butcher, the 
livery-stable keeper, provided they are recognized by 
society at Le Mars as gentlemen, are not considered to 
degrade their good old names by such experiments iu 

Y 



322 Camps in the Rockies. 

new enterprise, and continue on the footing of gentlemen 
with the young farmers. You see the heir-apparent to an 
old English earldom mowing, assisted by the two sons 
of a viscount ; you can watch the brother of an earl feeding 
the thrashing-machine. The happy sunburnt faces of the 
well set-up, strong-backed, J^oung Britishers are pleasant 
features in the rich, agricultural landscape. If 3- ou would 
see the English character to its full advantage, hie from 
Pall Mall and St. James's Street to some Colorado ranche 
or Kansas farm. There, in not a few instances, you will 
find the survival of what has gained England her grand 
repute — sterling manliness and uncompromising honesty. 
But forewarned is in this case forearmed. Let not the 
young emigrant expect to find in the Western farmer or 
stock-raiser men of the English prototype. There are no 
broad-skirted coats, buff-leggings, ruddy, beef-fed exteriors; 
no rural farmhouses, with thatched roof and creepers 
trailing over the front of the cosy-looking dwelling. The 
men and their, houses you will see in the West will be in 
pronounced contrast to such home impressions ; but as they 
have been described hundreds of times, I need not say more 
about them. Of the many difficulties which beset the path 
of the young Britisher, none will be so formidable as those 
consequent upon the necessary unlearning of his British 
idiosyncrasies, and as long as he manages to do this 
without pecuniary losses he is fortunate. 

There is a deal of wisdom given in the reported advice 
of an old settler to an Englishman who was about to send 
his son to America. '*^ Can you trust me ? " says the settler. 
^•' Yes," said the father, " we know you long enough to do 
that." ^'Then trust me with the capital you intend giving 
your son, and I will dispose of it to his best advantage." 



Camps in Cowboy land, 323 

The father hands him notes to the amount of 2000/. 
The settler strikes a match^ and proceeds to set fire to 
the notes. The irate and astonished parent extinguishes 
the flames and demands an explanation. He gets it by 
the settler telling him that he wm about to dispose of 
the son's capital to his best advantage ; that the money 
would be wasted before the youth would begin to work for 
himself; and that by burning the notes much valuable 
time would be saved in his sou's life. 

Before I proceed to enter upon the details of the ranche 
business in the trans-Missourian West, I must mention 
that what I say of its rough sides only holds good for the 
new sections of the country. In not a few of the large 
Colorado cattle-ranches you will find yourself surrounded 
by luxuries of every kind. But as this is not a region 
where anew comer is likely to start on ^' his own hook/' I 
have purposely confined myself to the rough sides of the 
picture. 

Accustomed as we are to large figures when examining 
statistics relating to the domestic or foreign economy of 
the United States^ the vast surplus of the two last years' 
harvests in that country/ no less than England's very 
rapidly increasing cattle trade with the United States, have 
of late served to bring before us in more than usually 
startling manner the dangers threatening our agricul- 
turists by the nearly unlimited foo^l-producing '<)apacitiea 
of America. 

Of special interest, under the prevailing circum- 
stanceSj is the questi )n of raising cattle on the free 

* I am writing of 1879-80. The figures I mention can be con- 
sidered trustworthy, for they were furnished to me by the Chief of 
the Bureau of Statistics at Washington. 

y 2 



324 Camps in the Rockies. * 

public lands of Western Territories ; and I'ecently pub- 
lished accounts of a perfectly trustworthy nature, no less 
than the results of the personal investigations of the 
Royal Agricultural Interests Commission, only enhance 
it; for they prove beyond doubt that stock-raising under 
such very favourable circumstances as exist in some of 
the North -Western districts of the Union has a great 
future before it. 

If we examine the origin of Western stock-raising, we 
find that, like so many other institutions in the United 
States, it took its first start while the country was yet in 
the throes of its last great war. Texas at that time was 
still a much-neglected territory — a safe refuge for fugitives 
from justice, disguised with long beards, quaint aliases, 
and broad sombreros. This immense expanse, consisting 
mainly of prairies — Texas has 274,356 square miles, or 
more than France, Portugal, Belgium, and Switzerland 
combined — was the home of enormous herds of semi-wild 
cattle of a very inferior breed, " all horns and tails," as the 
frontiersman said of them. Their wild eyes and wide- 
spreading horns were in keeping with their forbidding, 
raw-boned, ungainly aspect, and fierce tempers. There 
were millions of them. In 1860 the tax returns, of course 
considerably under-estimated, showed 2,733,267 head of 
cattle, and 172,243 working oxen, in Texas ; and not a few 
of the astonishingly lazy and ignorant rancheros — mostly 
of Spanish or Mexican origin — could boast of herds 
exceeding 50,000 head, and some few, if accounts are 
true, owned as many as 100,000. They were, however, 
of little pecuniary benefit to their owners ; the absence of 
any market and foreign demand on the part of Northern 
nei^hbour.s made them very nearly as valueless as were at 



Camps in Cowboy land, yi^ 

the same period the countless "beef" on the rolling 
pampas of South America.^ 

Towards the close of the great national struggle, when 
meat, cereals, and, in fact, every kind of food, rose in the 
Northern States to hitherto unknown prices, some venture- 
some Government contractors tried the experiment of 
driving small herds of these cattle from Texas to the 
Northern armies. In the beginning only small " bunches '* 
of two or three hundred travelled that weary journey over 
the subsequently so bistoric trails leading from their 
prairie homes to Missouri and other Eastern states. The 
profits were enormous, for steers could in those good days 
be bought for about 25s., and sold at the end of their two 
or three months^ overland journey for 11. ; they were, in 
in fact, so large that the secret soon oozed out, and men 
with larger capital, and unfettered by Grovernment con- 
tracts, "■ started in,^' and for a year or two — till at last the 
astoundingly easy-going rancberos of Texas found out 
the increased value of their stock — profits remained as 
bigh. Gradually they were cut down finer; for rapidly 
as money is made, and incomparably higher as are the 
profits attainable by a successful speculation in the States 
than in slower and surer-going Europe, the fact that a 
man could double or quadruple his capital in four months, 
running no very great risks, allured great numbers of 
Eastern men to embark their own and tbeir friends^ money 
in stock- driving operations. This was, it must be remem- 

2 In 1879 the United States contained more than 33,000,000 head 
of cattle; and as 12,000,000 were milch cows, the increase of the 
country's stock, after all home and forei,£::n consumption is covered, 
can liardly he estimated at less tban a million and a half per annum ; 
under the circumstances startling figures. 



326 Camps in the Rockies. 

bered, long before cattle or meat export to Europe had 
taken root ; hence it was but natural that soon, with 
increased numbers of drivers, competition decreased the 
profits — first to 75 or 100 per cent., and then gradually 
even to lower rates. In the eyes of the men who had first 
started, the business was soon played out. Not so, how- 
ever, was the inventive American genius. Hitherto the 
cattle business was simple, that of a drover buying stock 
in a cheap market and selling it with a good profit in 
]N"orthern towns. What was easier, asked the keen-eyed 
speculator, than to do as the now millionaire Texan cattle 
kings did, let nature work for you ? Yonder lay the vast 
stretches of the so-called American Desert, ranging from 
the Mississippi, in those days the Western boundary of 
civilization, to tlie Sierra Nevadas — a track 1500 miles long 
and 2000 wide — on the Eastern confines of which the new 
Terriiories of Kansas, Arkansas, and jN^ebraska were just 
then constituting themselves, with that rapidity peculiar to 
the migratory Yankee, to whom the making of laws and 
building of towns is a natural occupation. While tens of 
thousands of half-crazed mining emigrants were crossing 
the Plains, pushing Westwards to the new gold countries, 
many more, belonging as a rule to a far better and 
thriftier class of Eastern-raised folk, were crowding into 
the new Territories, with the intention of settling down as 
farmers. What wonder that Horace Greeley^s precious 
advice, " Go West, youjig man," was also applied to the 
bovine race ? Very speedily the new settlers awoke to the 
vast profits of stock-raising, in countries where not only 
land but also grazing costs nothing, and where the 
incidental expenses of a farm are, to European ideas, 
exceptionally low. 



■ Camps in Cowboy Land, 2>^'j 

Soon a regular trade in Texas cattle was started^ and 
great numbers of the shaggy Texas steers were driven 
North, over *' trails " that soon became famous in Western 
history. Cities sprang up along the route, whose entire 
existence depended upon the business. Their character 
was the " worst of the worst/' To give an instance, the 
historj'" of Ellsworth may be mentioned. This town, 
built in a fortnight, was soon a recognized centre. 
It was most favourably situated 250 miles from the 
Missouri border, and, rapid as success is in those regions, 
it had soon outstripped its competitors. Mixing with 
*' cowmen,^' as all cattle-raisers are generally termed out 
West, you will even now hear of the wondrously reckless 
life in that mushroom '' stock " town. The profits were 
so enormous, wages so high, and money so plentiful, that 
bagnios and gambling-hells out of number, each owned 
by some municipal official, sprang up, and life was as 
" cheap '* as in a mining camp of the worst class. To give 
a typical instance of the speedy manner by which Western 
towns are apt to ''regulate'^ themselves, it may be men- 
tioned that, after having passed resolutions stigmatizing 
the conduct of the municipal government of Ellsworth, the 
" cowboys '' one night rose, and quietly shot the mayor, 
the police magistrate, the city marshal, the chief of police, 
and six policemen, besides one or two minor officials who 
took part with their superiors. After a three-days^ state 
of siege, during which the boys held the town, and shot 
at e^ery head that showed itself out of window or door, 
order was resl.ored. Since then — similar to most other 
like instances of self-purged settlements — Ellsworth is a 
mo;lel of order and quiet. 

Kaising cattle on the free public land of the Great West 



328 Camps in the Rockies, 

can be done at the absurdly low rate of from 4s. to 5s. per 
bead ; for wben once the rancbe or dwelling is built, an 
affair that need not cost more than 60/. to 100/., and your 
provisions and horses bought, there remains absolutely 
no other expense to be provided for bat the wages of 
the stockmen or " cowboys/^ each of whom, for his 6/. 
monthly pay, will, when on the range, take care of 1000 
head of cattle. Fortunately for the farmers of Europe, the 
frontier rancheman — probably hundreds of miles from 
the next railway station, and the latter again 1000 or 
1500 miles from his great market, Chicago — is handi- 
capped by the enormous expense of the transport of his 
** beeves.'^ Mr. Dun, the author of an interesting paper 
on cattle-raising, states that the cost of transit from the 
slopes of the Rocky Mountains to Liverpool is not less 
than 8/. per head, which adds quite ''Z\cl. a pound to the 
dead weight of each steer.^ 

But to return to the growth of stock-raising. A further 
very great impulse was given to it by the building of 
the Pacific Eailroad, which was begun sixteen years ago. 
As more emigrants from the East continued to pour in, 
land became valuable, and the cattlemen- began to move 
Westwards to new districts, where their herds could 
graze free of expense on the Plains. 

Colorado next became the goal of the West-bound 
stock-raisers, and at the present day that vast State — it 
became such in 1876, and hence is called the Centennial 

' Prom statements I heard I should have put this at even a higher 
f gure, for the freight rates of the Union Pacific are, as there is no 
competition, enormous. According to the report of the Royal Com- 
mission, the cost appears a little higher, namely, from 9Z. to 10/, 
per ox. 



Camps in Cow boy land, . 329 

State — with its 105,000 square miles, and a population 
under 200,000 souls, is, in the eyes of stock-raisers, prac- 
tically speaking already " full ; " that is, all land available 
for this purpose, with the necessary water frontage on a 
creek or river, is now occupied. To-day, Wyoming, 
Montana Idaho, and New Mexico, no less than the 
extreme Western portions of Texas, are the most desirable 
countries in which to " locate " a cattle ranche. 

Since 1875 the profits have been greatly reduced, by the 
increase of freight rates and decrease of Chicago prices for 
meat. The first shows a rise of quite 100 per cent, since 
1878. Before that year the car holding twenty-one 
animals cost J50 (from the Plains to Chicago or St. 
Louis). Of late the charge is $110. Live-meat prices 
in either of these places have decreased quite 25 per 
cent. Nevertheless, the profits, as the Royal Commis- 
sioners say, are still fully 33 per cent, per annum if the 
rancheman has no bad luck, such as severe winters, &c. 

In the same way that most Americans with difficulty 
realize the conditions of tenure in England, and invariably 
discover, when finally they have mastered the details of 
entailed ownership, a strong incentive in it to *'skin" the 
land — a proceeding arising necessarily, as they think, 
from the absence of those selfish motives to improve it — 
in the same way, I repeat, does land tenure in the Union 
puzzle us.^ 

To Old World ears it sounds strange to be told that you 
or I, reader, can to-day start for any of the three or four 

* I am speaking tiere of legitimate land holdings ; for, as everybody 
knows, the lobby system in the United States Houses of Legislature 
has opened the doors to " land-grabbers," who work their little game 
on a very vast scale. 



330 Camps in the Rockies. 

last-named Territories, pick out a good " range/' or 
district for grazing, as yet unoccupied, drive on to it a 
herd of 10,000 cattle, select a suitable spot near to a con- 
venient creek, and there build our ranche or farmhouse, 
fence in 50 or 100 acres for hay land, and, in fact 
make ourselves entirely at home, disporting ourselves as 
virtual owners of the land — without paying one penny for 
it, or outstepping any Territorial or United States statute, 
or doing what is not perfectly lawful. There is no trouble 
about title-deeds, surveyors, or lawyers ; possession is nine 
points of the law, sturdy defence of your property being 
the tenth. No man has the '* right by law " to prevent 
another man driving as many head of cattle as he chooses 
on to his range ; but here local cattle laws come in. 
As in every mining camp, ranchemen have their own 
statutes unanimously agreed upon and tacitly obeyed by 
every member. The stranger who would intrude his own 
herd on a range already full, would, after receiving one or 
two friendly warnings to " move on,'' be made acquainted 
with that peculiarly Western process of being ''bounced.'' 
But this occurs very rarely indeed. 

Very naturally this state of things, existing only in so 
called " unsurveyed '^ districts, can only continue so long 
as the supply of Plains available for grazing purposes lasts. 
Huge as Uncle Sam's possessions available for cattle ranges 
are, they are nevertheless approiiching exhaustion; and, 
indeed, it would be difficult to imagine what possibly could 
resist the energetic onslaughts of his speculative children, 
pressing Westward with un abating impetuosity. A spirit 
well epitomized in the saying " If hell lay in the West, 
they would cross heaven to reach it," which has even found 
pUice \Vi the Report of the Royal Commissioners on Agri- 



Camps in Cowboy land, 331 

cultural Interests — certainly the last place where one 
would expect such unparliamentary phraseology. This as 
yet unexhausted supplj'- makes contentions among frontier 
settlers respecting land very rare ; for, unlike the mining 
claim-jumper, landsharks find it not worth while risking 
life in enforcing their fictitious claims of ownership, when, 
perhaps, twenty or thirty miles farther up the valley, land 
as good for their purpose awaits them. 

To make American land tenure^ not only in the West 
but also in the East, more intelligible to the reader, let 
me recapitulate broadl}'- the most prominent features of 
the law on this subject. 

The whole of the United States ^ must for this pui-pose 
be divided into two categories — the surveyed and unsur- 
veyed. To the former belong, of course, all the Eastern 
States, also Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and some few 
other portions of the ** Great West." California I leave 
quite aside, as, for Europe, only its vast mineral and wheat- 
growing resources come into play — at least as long as the 
Great Pacific Railroad is not compelled by wholesale com- 
petition to lower its exorbitant freight rates. To the '^ un- 
surveyed'' belong, broadly speaking, Montana, Wyoming, 
Idaho, portions of Oregon, Washington Territ»jry, New 
Mexico, and Arizona — the latter, on account of its sterile 
soil is, I understand, of little value for stock-raising, — • 
here ownership rests with the first comer, until at a future 
period the Territory is surveyed by Government officials, 
and the land mapped out and divided into districts, each 
coming under a Government district official. Those that 

* With the exception of the State of Texas, where it is State pro- 
perty, land in the United States is the property of the Federal 
Government, 



2)j2 Camps in the Rockies^ 

have " located " previous to tliis period are left in undis- 
puted possession, provided they have improved the land— - 
that is, either cultivated it, fence it in, or, as would be in the 
case of stock-raisers, have cattle of their own grazing on 
it. A nominal fee secures to the settler a Government 
title. In Montana and Wyoming cattlemen consider that 
each head of cattle would require from fifteen to twenty- 
five acres if the land was enclosed. This gives one some 
idea of the requisite extent of a range for a large herd. 

The " squatter's right/^ in contradistinction to *' pre- 
emption/' which latter is the taking possession of unsur- 
veyed land by building on it, or improving it, comes into 
play in the case of unoccupied but surveyed land. By it, 
every adult who shows that he intends to live on the land 
himself, acquiring it for that purpose only, and not for 
speculating, is entitled to 160 acres ; or if the land comes 
under the denomination of desert land, under which head 
the Great Plains generally are placed, to 620 acres ; for 
this surveyed land Government charges the settler 55. per 
acre (the 620 acres of desert land being considered, in 
point of payment, equal to 160 acres of good soil) distri- 
buted in certain proportions over five years, thus enabling 
the poorest to found a home. Of course, unoccupied land 
can be bought to any extent for ready money from 
Government, but naturally this occurs rarely, as by moving 
farther West, land, as we have seen, can be had for 
nothing. If the settler, occupying soil by squatter's right, 
has grown-up sons, they in their turn can benefit by tlie 
same Act ; the intention of Government being the high 
cultivation of small expanses, rather than the careless or 
only partial improvement of larger tracts. These are the 
broad outlines upon which rests land tenure in the United 



Camps in Cowboy I and, 333 

States. The principle of demand and supply, wLich 
governs the mercantile intercourse of civilized people, 
comes into play beyond the Mississippi very much in the 
same way. Out "West laws make themselves, but not a 
day before the want of them is felt. And in the same 
way, as long as the supply of land exceeds the demand, 
that commodity, in an unimproved state, will be valueless, 
or very nearly so. 

If we compare the Northern Territories with the 
Southern, with the intention of examining their adapta- 
bility for stock-raising, and their several advantages and 
disadvantages as fields for English immigration, we at 
once strike at the only great source of danger for such 
enterprises, namelj^, the climate. The greater part of 
Wyoming, Montana^ and Idaho, all of which are traversed 
by the numerous branching chains of the Rocky Moun- 
tains, are four^ five, and the first-mentioned six and seven 
thousand feet over the sea, exposed to very severe winters. 
The Southern Territories, such as New Mexico, Western 
Texas, and those few portions of Southern Colorado still 
unoccupied, are equally liable to suffer from the other 
extreme — great summer heats, producing every few years 
prolonged droughts ; for it must be remembered that the 
climate is a far drier one than that of Europe, and the 
supply of water all along the slopes of the Rocky Moun- 
tains exceedingly scanty — a fact which must be attributed 
to the absence of rain, sandy soil, and to the barren sur- 
face of the mountaiiis, shedding moisture far more rapidly 
than in timbered countries. Besides these climatic risks, 
the Western stock-raiser has to chance another danger, 
which, though it has not )'et made its piesence felt, could 
with one cruel blow wreck the fortune of thousands ; 



334 Camps in the Rockies^ 

and t"his is the cattle plague — pie uro- pneumonia, and 
the rest" of these terrible scourges — up to now unknown 
west of the Missouri. To what this immunity is to be 
ascribed — whether to the dryness of the climate^ the con- 
stant equality of the feed, to some medicinal quality of 
either herbage or water, or to a lucky chance — is un- 
known ; as is also how long the happy exemption may 
last. • The consequences of disease once gaining a foot- 
hold on the vast expanse of the Plains, stretching from 
the frontier of Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and 
from the Sierra Madre to the great Mississippi, are 
perfectly frightful to contemplate. Hardly one of the 
15,000,000 of cattle, which on a moderate estimate 
range wholly unrestrained over this tract, could escape 
contagion. It would be one terrible leap from wealth 
to bankruptcy. As no stock, save the bulls for breeding 
purposes, is imported from the East, or from countries 
where pleuro-pneamonia has ever been prevalent, it is 
obvious that the chief danger of importing contagion 
rests with the introduction of breeding stock. This 
danger is of late impressing itself upon stock-holders all 
over the West. Congress has been appealed to with the 
view of establishing commissions composed of veterinary 
surgeons and experienced stockmen, in order, first of all, 
to exercise proper vigilance on the Eastern frontiers— a 
sanitary line very easy to control, as all bulls are brought 
"West by one or the other of three great lines, and the 
Missouri is a natural frontier drawn by nature — and 
secondly, should, notwithstanding all precautions, the 
disease make its appearance, to empower them to destroy 
immediately ail animals that have, or possibly could have, 
come into contact with the diseased stock. Congress 



Camps in Cowboy land. 335 

evinces, however, for problems of this kind, not only very 
little interest, but suffers from a chronic state of poverty 
when matters of national welfare like these come upon the 
tapis. That inbred happy-go-lucky trusting to fortune, 
which is strongly represented in the individual's character, 
is also represented in the Parliament. The chances are, 
too, that if such a Board of Supervision were created, it 
would, like the Indian question and other questionably 
conducted public matters, fall immediately into the hands 
of a ring — putting wealth into the pockets of a few, to the 
utter ruin possibly of a whole community, should the 
Board's active services become necessary. Very little 
reliance can, therefore, be placed on Government help. 
More likely does it seem that the whole body of Western 
stockmen will arrive at some arrangement among them- 
selves ; for, like making laws and building houses, ready 
self-help becomes second nature among a frontier popu- 
lation. 

It must not be supposed, however, that "Western cattle 
are wholly exempt from the ills of their flesh. In Texas 
there is a peculiar disease known as Texas fever, and very 
nearly all adult cattle of an improved stamp imported into 
Texas for breeding purposes, take it and die. Texas- 
bred stock, however, very rarely suffer from it, but, 
strange to say, they appear to be able to infect other 
cattle with a form of disease hardly ever showing in 
themselves, so that at certain times of the year, when 
droves of Texas " beeves " are driven northwards, other 
cattle crossing the trail are smitten with the Texas fever, 
and die by thousands. The report of the Hoyal Com- 
missioners speaks of it as a very mysterious disease. 

Most visitors when first they see the great Plains of 



^^6 Camps in the Rockies, 

Western Nortli America are grievously disappointed. The 
Missouri ODce passed, the verdant green, the most pro- 
minent feature of our own pastoral landscape, vanishes 
totally, and the traveller on the great Trans-Continental 
Railway will see for upwards of 1000 miles hardly a 
tree; and his eyes, accustomed to our home grass-land, 
will be painfully struck by the arid, waterless, and ver- 
dureless aspect of the country. If he travels across this 
vast district late in summer or in autumn, it will seem 
totally destitute of grass ; for the blades, or rather 
bunches, of buffalo grass, of such singularly nourishing 
properties, have long been dried up and cured by summer 
heat. Instead of rotting away and losing every atom of 
strength, as European grasses do if they are not cut in 
time, they retain all their most valuable qualities ; in fact, 
it is generally m.aintained that this self-cured hay, as we 
might term it, is more nutritious for cattle than fresh 
grass, which, as in the case of green clover-feed for horses, 
■fills, but does not nourish. However this may be, it is 
certain that all the various kinds of cattle imported from 
the east, south, and west flourish on it. A herd of 5000 
head wiU feed the year round and grov/ fat on a stretch of 
arid-looking table4and, where an English farmer, if he saw 
it in autumn, would vow there was not sufficient grazing 
for his children's donkey. There are, of course, different 
degrees in the quality of grazing-land ; some are very 
much superior to others, and these latter are generally to 
be found in the neighbourhood of great ranges of moun- 
tains. 

If we examine the natural features of the Great Plains, 
we find that, with very few exceptions no part of fchem 
\^ill feed nearly as many cattle, sheep, or horses lo the 



Camps in Cowboy land. 337 

Bquare mile as land will in the Eastern States or in Europe ; 
but tlie almost limitless area counterbalances this. The 
grasses of the Plains are not kept strictly apart, and are 
called somewhat indiscriminately gama, buffalo^ or bunch- 
grass. One kind grows about six inches high, the other 
is smaller. Their growth, beginning about the first of 
May, continues to the end of July, when the dry season 
commences ; they then dry up, and are cured by the sun; 
and as the frosts, let them be ever so hard, do not seem to 
penetrate to the roots, or else do not harm them, they 
retain their full strength for tke whole winter. It is in- 
teresting to note that the virtues of this self-cured hay were 
discovered comparatively quite recently — viz., during the 
building of the Pacific Hallway, not twenty years ago, when 
some draught-oxen were lost one autumn, and, much to 
the surprise of the owner, were found the following spring 
quite fat and healthy. Nature has provided in many 
ways for her children ; for not only can stock find ready 
shelter under the blulFs, and in the n;any small valleys 
and glens called pockets and gulches, and under the 
clusters of hardy cedars and spreading cottonwood-trees 
which almost serve the purpose of barns and stables, but 
the hurricanes which prevail after every snowstorm clear 
the slopes in a marvellously short time from the snowy 
pall, driving it together in banks, and filling up depres- 
sions in the ground. Rarely does the dry and flour-like 
snow crust over, a process which for cattle means starvation 
if warm weather does not soon follow. 

The snowstorms in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana are 
usually very severe indeed ; they generally last three days 
with unabated fury, the thermometer going down to bb or 
60 degrees of frost. In the Western vernacular they 

z 



33^- Camps in the Rockies. 

are known as "blizzards/' It is specially the so-called 
" breaking-up " storm wbich is dreaded by rancbemen. 
It is the last, coming about March or the first half 
of April; and not only is it the severest of all, but it finds 
cattle less able to withstand its fury, and go without food 
for three or four days, exposed to great cold and Arctic 
winds. 

Losses in severe winters are often very great. Where 
sheep are raised, as, for instance, in Colorado and some 
districts in W3^oming, whole flocks of four or five 
thousand head perish in one night ; and one case is 
related, when the breaking-up storm came as late as 
May, that two men lost in four hours over 10,000. Of 
cattle, no such extreme instances have to be chronicled, 
tliough in some places ranchemen lost, in the winters of 
1871-72, and 1880-81, the two severest ever known, half 
their herds. But experience has taught stockmen many 
lessons, particularly in the choice of their range, respect- 
ing which they were formerly very much more careless. 
The presence of the ravines and bluffs so peculiar to the 
Bocky Mountain formation, is as essential as water and 
grass ; and men starting now prefer to go 100 or 200 
miles farther from the railway, and have a sheltered 
range, than risk heavy losses and be nearer the point 
from whence they '' ship *' ® their produce. 

Notwithstanding that cattle, no less than sheep, are 
able to obtain their own subsistence all the year round, 
the avocation of stock-growing, as we shall see, is attended 
during part of the year with no little care and labour. 
During the summer, autumn, and winter, the cattle roam 

^ The term *' ship " is coinmonl}'^ used in America for " send by 
rail." 



Camps in Cowboy land. 339 

at will over the Plains, and different herds, or piirts 
thereof, mingle together, and perhaps wander for long 
distances from their home range. Yery frequently single 
heads, separated most likely from their herd in a stampede, 
are found two. or three hundred miles away. To collect 
these stragglers and to take a census, no less than to pick 
out the beeves for market, the annual " round-up ^' is 
held. At this period, falling in June and July, the whole 
country is searched, and the cattle appertaining to a 
district are driven together ^n one vast herd, from whence 
the different ranchemen separate their own cattle, easily 
recognizable by the brand. After a mutual exchange of 
strayed ones, each owner takes his herd back to their 
home range, and after branding the calves, tarns them 
out loose, not to see them again till ^'round-up" next 
year. 

For each district, embracing many hundred square miles, 
and from ten to twenty ranches, a cap lain — generally 
one of the old settlers well acquainted with the country — 
is chosen. Under him work the cowboys from the 
different ranches, numbering often seventy or more 
men, and 200 or more horses, for each cowboy has at 
least three spare mounts with him on these occasions* 
The whole country, so large that it will take them two or 
three months to work it over, is laid out in daily rides. 
If there is a large stream in the district, the watercourse 
is followed ; the country for twent}'^ or thirty miles on 
both sides being carefully searched by the mounted cow- 
boys, who, all worldng under one head, develop great 
aptitude for their laborious work. They are in the saddle 
for at least sixteen hours every day, and most of the time 
on the *'lope," or canter, chasing and collecting the semi- 

z 2 



340 Camps in the Rockies, 

wild cattle, till at last, often long after dark, they bring 
in, driving before tbem, the stock found that day. 

If the range, as very frequently is the case, be a 
mountainous one (there are many in Wyoming seven and 
eight thousand feet over the sea, in the heart, one might 
say, of the E-ocky Mountains), the search for cattle is far 
more difficult than on level or undulating prairie- land. 
Among the rough and steep chains of mountain full 
of "draws," "pockets,^' and gulches, — generally densely 
timbered at the bottom — the search is anything but 
easy. A cow or small bunch of cattle overlooked on one 
round-up, is, however^ not necessarily lost ; for generally 
they will turn up on that or some neighbouring range 
during the next year's round-up. Wyoming ranchemen 
have told me that often they accidentall}^ pitch upon 
cattle they migsed four or five years before ; while on 
such occasions the original cow will make her appearance 
with quite a little family of unbranded steers, yearlings, 
and calves. These " foundlings ^^ are often appropriated by 
others than the rightful owners, the branding iron covering 
in this instance a multitude of sins. Considering how 
broken is the ground, and of what huge dimensions is 
each range, it speaks well for the cowboy's powers that 
the losses from stra^n'ng amount, under proper care, to not 
more than one or two per cent, per annum. The total 
percentage of losses incurred from stress of weather, 
droughts, &c., varies considerably. More than half of 
the owners or managers of the ranges (about 100) I 
visited, declared that five per cent, in aver;ige years will 
amply cover ; otliers maintained seven, and a few even 
thought ten per cent. The round-up is a busj^ time for 
man a?'',d horse on frontier ranches. It is a period afibrd- 



Camps in Cowboy land. 341 

ing pleasant change to the cowboy^ who the rest of the 
year is buried on his isolated ranche, often months without 
seeing a white man, and j'ears frequently pass before the 
glance of a woman's gown makes his heart flutter. There 
is a wonderful amount of animated life, light-hearted 
merrimentj and vigorous and healthful rivalry about one 
of these round-ups. They begin with a substantial 
breakfast, at which often a whole steer, divided among 
the different messes, is used ; the rising sun sees the 
tall, lithe-figured, and bronze-faced cowboys, their spurs 
jingling, their legs encased in leather ^shaps, the heavy 
six-shooter and cartridge-belt girt round the waist, leap 
into the saddle, man and horse equally eager for the 
exciting chase. With the snake-like lariat swinging 
round his head with that peculiar hissing sound so 
terrifying to the c'nased, the mettlesome little broncho, 
urged by a shout from the easy "lope," a cradle-motioned 
sort of canter — a pace kept up by cow ponies for hours at 
a time — into a sharp gallop, the whole company, like 
L'litzow's '^ wilde verwegene Jagd,'' disperses over the 
boundless plains or the mountain-girt highland, each man 
making straight for his post, only to return, driving 
before him the cattle he and his comrades have found, 
when dark renders further search impossible. These, 
if it is an open country, will often be as many as 
200 to the man ; if broken, and full of pockets and 
draws, or densely timbered ravines, perhaps not more 
than ten or fifteen. Cowboys learn to track animals as 
Indians do gauie, and I was often amused to watch from 
some elevated spot a " field ^* of co\vbo5''s at work. Here 
you will see a couple dismounted and leading their ponies, 
following some faint tracks on the hard gravelly soil 



342 Camps in the Rockies, 

which, till softer ground is reached, or other indisputahle 
stock signs discovered, might prove those of elk or (unshod) 
Indian ponies. Generally, water betrays cattle ; for let 
them be ever so far from it, or carefully screened from 
discovery in dense timber, they must at least once every 
twenty-four hours repair to the next creek or water-hole, 
when their tracks are easily discernable. Yonder we 
perceive two of the daring riders pursuing a small 
" bunch ^^ of frisky j^oung bulls stampeding down a steep 
slope, tails raised high, evidently frightened at the 
unusual sight of man, and the pursuers at full gallop 
tearing down the hill at more than break-neck pace, 
endeavouring to head them off ; man and horse apparently 
oblivious of the steepness of the grade, and the many 
treacherous gopher-holes tliat dot it. They are all won- 
derful riders, and on these occasions they strive to out-do 
each other. I saw one spill on a steep hillside, occa- 
sioned by a prairie-dog hole, into which the horse put 
one of its forelegs ; and from motives of curiosity I 
measured the distance the rider was sent spinning, and 
found that between the gopher-hole and the spot where 
the man's shoulder touched ground first was twenty- seven 
feet less three inches. The man was only slightly stunned, 
and amid the laughter of his companions, who never show 
any mercy on such occasions, picked himself up, and 
pulling his six-shooter, forthwith shot the disabled 
*' broncho." 

While on the round-up, the cattle found each day are 
collected, and during the night half of the men are on 
guard keeping them together. Finallj^, after four or five 
weeks' hard work the whole country is thoroughly 
searched, and the herd, now numbering many thousands, 



I 



Cmnps in Cozvboyland, 343 

is ready for tlie " cutting out/' performed with an in- 
credible dash by the cowboys. Each marj singling out 
the cows with the brand of his ranche od them — about 
seventy-five per cent, of which are followed by as j^et 
unbranded calves — dashes into the herd. Their wonder- 
fully sagacious and well-trained ponies, now running at 
full speed, now turning and dodging like flashes, anticipat- 
ing each move of the frightened mother-cow in her vain 
endeavour to find security where the herd is most densely 
packed, seem to enter into the spirit of the sport as keenly 
as the light-hearted rider, who, now swinging in his right 
hand his raw-hide lariat or lasso, prepares for the throw. 
The whirling rope, circling in black rings round his head, 
is launched forth ; the loop drops with unerring aim 
round the calf's head ; the horse stops the same instant, 
throws himself back, and with one frantic plunge the 
calf is down, to be dragged the next minute to the fireside, 
where the brand is applied. Equally easily is the strong 
steer thrown, for in the hands of the trained cowboy the 
lariat is a dangerous tool. The loop about the neck, or 
over one or both hind legs, about the body, or over one 
foreleg — at the will of the masterful hand — and the power- 
ful bull lies prostrate and helpless on the ground in an 
incredibly short space of time. When all the calves have 
been branded, ownerless'" mavricks '■* brought in, and any 
disputes arising respecting the ownership of these waifs 
settled, the ''beeves " or steers for the market are selected 
by each rancheman and driven oflP to the nearest Union 
Pacific railway (U.P.) station, where they are ''shipped*' 
to Chicago. Eanchemen in a small way frequently club 
together, and make up one party to drive their beeves 
thereto en masse. 



344 Camps in the Rockies, 

Monotonously lonely as are their lives for the rest of 
the year, buried in their isolated ranche, where the 
advent of strangers is an unlooked-for and rare event, 
the round-up is for the laughter-loving though hard- 
worked cowboy a merry period ; for his perilous vocation 
then gives him the best of chances to exhibit his daring 
feats on horsebacl^, to indulge in attractive rivahy respect- 
ing the fleetness of his several "cayuses" or ponies, the 
unerring aim of his lariat and revolver ; and finally, is not 
the camp fireside nighttythe scene of the vast story-telling 
powers inherent in the true cowboy, especially if he be of 
Texas grit and grain ? 

I have already mentioned, that after the branding the 
cattle are turned out on the range, there to remain 
unguarded and unwatched during the winter months. 
The same is done with the horses, or at least with the 
majorit}", onl}^ a few head being reserved for use, stabled 
in a log shanty near the ranche, where, during the 
severest weather they are fed on the scanty supply of hay 
collected on hay bottoms during autumn, and at other 
times are turned out to graze close b3^ 

Cowboys can be divided into two classes — one hailing 
from the Lone Star State, Texas ; the other, recruited either 
from Eastern States, chiefly Missouri, or from the Pacific 
slopes, Oregon contributing no mean number of Webfoots, 
who are so called from the long winter rains in that 
colony. Tbe Texans are, as far as true cowboyship 
goes, unrivalled : the best riders, hardy, and born to the 
but^iness, the only drawback being their wnld reputation. 
The others are less able but more orderly men. The 
bad name of Texans arises mostly from their excitable 
tempers, and the fact that they are often "on the 



Camps in Cowboy land. 345 

shoot/* — that is, somewliat free in the use of their 
revolvers. 

If we come to the practical issues of the question, the 
first point to be settled by the intending rancheman, 
when once he has chosen his range, is what cattle to 
purchase. There are three great sources from which 
countless herds are annually drafted : Texas, Utah, and 
Oregon. The first mentioned was, as we have heard, 
originally the only stock country. The two last have 
entered the competing lists very recently, thereby giving 
us another proof of the enormous productive capacities of 
the Great West. Thirty-five years ago, when Oregon 
was a perfect wilderness, and Utah not yet in existence, 
there was not a head of stock in those regions, save 
the i^^ which each settler family brought with them 
from the East ; half, if not more, of the number they 
started with usually succumbing to the hardships of 
over-driving and the want of good food and water on the 
inhospitable and endless desert. Cattle-driving, as a 
speculation, was then and for a long time to come unheard 
of, so none brought more than they could conveniently 
drive ; and old guides have stated to me that the average 
number was decidedly under ten to each family of 
emigrants. These bovine immigrants in the meanwhile 
have multiplied in the green valleys of Oregon at an 
enormous rate ; and now there are hundreds of thousands 
where, thirty, and even twenty years ago, there were not 
hundreds. Curious to say, the progeny of the original 
ancestors are now being diiven in vast herds back East- 
wards, over the very same old Mormon road which fifteen 
or twenty years ago their grandsires had travelled on 
their way to their, new Western homes. 



346 Camps in the Rockies, 

To return to the choice of stock. The general pi;Uio 
voice declares the Oregon and Utah I reed to be far superior 
to Texas cattle ; and while the earlier rancheraen in 
Colorado^ "Wyoming, and Montana had only the latter, the 
Oregon cows driven to the two last-mentioned Terri- 
tories in 1879 outnumbered Texas stock at least three 
or four times.^ At first it was greatly doubted whether 
cattle raised on the Pacific slopes^ and especially in the 
damp, moderately warm climate of Oregon, could possibly 
stand a Wyoming or Montana winter with its terribly 
severe snowstorms. Experience, however, has established 
not only that Oregon stock can withstand great climatic 
hardships, but also that they flourish on Wyoming soil. 
As both Utah and Oregon cattle fetch comparatively much 
higher prices in Chicago and other great markets, those 
breeds ai'e now the prime favourites ; and, as a natural 
consequence of the vastly increased demands, cows in 
Oregon have risen quite seventy-five per cent, in value 
within the last four or five years. 

The choice of j^our stock decided, there are three 
different ways of getting it. You caa first of all buy it on 
"the range,^' and this is the quickest, and, if you exercise 
due caution, fairly sure, but withal the most expensive 
way. The cattle are bought so many head, '' more or 
less ;" but as taking the census and the control over vast 
herds belonging to a number of different owners, roaming 
at large over large tracts of country, is naturall}^ not easy, 
and oaly possible at the round-up, this mode leaves a 
good many openings for sharp-witted " cussedness/' to 
which the newly arrived '^tenderfoot" very frequently 

"^ Twelve years ago these Territories imported about 800,000 head 
of Texas cattle annually ; while 250,000 is the number now. 



Camps in Cowboy land. 347 

falls victim. The second way, and for newly arrived 
settlers by far that most to be preferred, is to make con- 
tracts with any of the large and responsible drovers for 
a number of cattle of a certain breed and age, about 
seventy-five per cent, of the cows to have calves, the 
stock to be delivered at a specified time at your ranche, 
you stipulating a heavy forfeit (often as large as 3000/. or 
4000^.) in case of non-fulfilment of contract, and having 
the option of rejecting animals not perfectly healthy 
or according to agreement. Generally a year, however, 
elapses ere you receive your herd ; for, say you sign 
contracts in Wyoming in autumu, the cattle will be bought 
in Oregon by the driver in early spring, and the whole 
summer will p^ss ere the herd reaches Wyoming. The 
third, and originally the only way of procuring your 
stock, is to go yourself to Texas or Oregon, buy your 
cattle there from different owners, and start with them for 
your distant home as soon as the warm May sun has 
turned the vast Plains an emerald green. The process of 
driving cattle is called " riding on trail," one of the most 
laborious and dreary undertakings imaginable, of which 
we shall have to speak a little farther on. This, though 
the cheapest, is for *' tenderfeec ^' the most risky mode 
of purchasing stock. 

There are to-day two different ways of conducting the 
stock business out West. The one is to buy young steers, 
keep them two years on your range, and sell theui as 
four-year-olds to market. Per head the increase in value 
varies between $10 and $15 (2/. to 3/.); thus enabling the 
raneheman very nearly to dcuble his capital in that short 
space of time, provided his losses do not exceed five per 
cent. 



34^ Camps in the Rockies, 

The otlier manner is to rake stock, buying Texas, 
Oregon, or Utali cows, and the necessary number of 
Eastern, bulls of a good breed. This, if from the first 
you make up your mind not to sell a single animal for the 
first three years, is in the end far more profitable than the 
mere " feeding-up '* of stock. Formerly fewer men went 
into it, on account of the larger capital required to keep 
the concern going for the first three years with no 
incoming funds; but the last few years have brought, 
as the large profits of the business became better known in 
the East, larger capital, and now it is the favourite with 
men, tempted to go West, b}^ the very fair chance of 
making a fortune in six or eight years. 

In an account added in the Appendix, I furnish 
detailed estimates, based upon the most trustworthy 
authorities, examined by me personally, of the increase 
of cattle in a certain number of years, and the profits 
accruing to the stockman. I placed the amount invested 
at the outset at 10,000/., and proved that the profits at 
the end of three years amounted to 8800/. This, with 
fair luck, and losses taken at five per cent, each year 
consecutively. Of course the rate of increase grows con- 
siderably larger in subsequent years, as seventy- five per 
cent, of all cows have calves annually ; at least this is the 
generally accepted percentage in Wyoming and Montana, 
some few putting it as high as eighty, others seventy per 
cent. 

The whole subject of stock-raising on the Western 
Plains is attracting very general and deserved attention 
in the Eastern cities, and numbers of young men of g'dod 
family start, or are started annually by their friends, the 
capital invested varying frem 2000/. to 20,000/. But 



Camps in Cowboy land. 349 

even with a smaller start money can be made ; and not a 
few of the independent stockmen I met, sprung from the 
lowest social rank, were rapidly trebling their $3000 or 
$4000. Others, recruited from the middle classes of 
the States, had two or three years ago been railway 
conductors, hotel-keepers, Western merchants, petty civil 
servants, and, quite a number, trappers and Indian scouts. 

A considerable number of the former (trappers) had 
served as guides to rich English sportsmen, on their 
shooting tours in the Rocky Mountains, and had been 
started by them with a i^^^ thousand dollars. I have 
heard of some half-dozen gentlemen in England who 
are reported to draw fifteen and twenty per cent, interest 
from the capital they advanced to their former camp- 
fireside companions. 

In the United States, where ""tall '' talk is so common^ 
the numerous accc'unts that have been published of late 
of Western stock-raising all exhibit this national failing. 
Of the dozens I have had occasion to peruse, all were more 
or less overcoloured. The profits, according to them, 
were more like those of the old-day Texas cattle-trade than 
the actual truth, namely, from thirty to thirty-five per 
cent, per annum on the average of three or four years, and 
about forty per cent, on the average of seven years. They 
would be considerably greater (as the stock after the 
fourth and fifth year increases at a startling rate) were it 
not necessary to take into account the chance of one very 
bad winter out of seven, when the losses much exceed the 
five per cent. 

Nothing will give a better picture of a stockman^a 
fortune in those wild regions than a sketch from life. 
Let us select Mr. Iliff, one of the Iiest known cattlemen 



350 Cafnps in the Rockies. 

of Colorado and Wyoming, recently deceased. Mr. Iliflf 
was one of the many thousands who, in the great Pike 
Peak^s Gold excitement in 1859, crossed with frenzied 
energy the Great American Desert — as the vast tract of 
desert-like land intervening between the Mississippi and 
Colorado was then still called. Unlike the majority of 
his brethren — who after a short spell of fruitless work 
awoke to the stern reality that gold could not be picked 
up in panfuls, and either returned home, or pushed still 
farther West towards California, founding on their way that 
fabulously rich silver state Nevada — Iliff remained on the 
spot, threw shovel, pan, and rocker aside, and settled down 
to cultivate a small patch of ground near Denver, then 
a city of less than 100 miserable shanties, and peopled 
with the roughest of the rough ; for the numerous 
*^ hanging bees" which cleared off the most desperate 
element in subsequent years had then not yet been 
introduced. Iliff was not over fond of those dark sides 
of frontier life, and being himself "not on the shoot,^^ 
decided to move North. "Moviug " was, and is, a very 
simple affair in the West. Iliff, perfectly destitute when 
he came to Denver from the mines, had managed to save 
sufficient in the one season of his residence in that town, 
where the ''garden truck" — vegetables — raised by him 
found a very ready market, to buy a pony ^nd some few 
provisions, and a rifle. Loading them on his horse, he 
turned his back on lively Denver and his primitive 
'' dug-out," his home for the last six months. He reached 
the Northern Californian (Mormon) emigrant road, 
about 160 miles North of his late home in autumn, 
and at once set to work to build himself a log 
shanty, which he completed before the worst weather of 



Camps in Cowboy land. 35 t 

winter could surprise him. He had, so he stated in later 
years, onl}^ a few dollars in his pocket, a small cask of 
whiskey, and a little store of tobacco. With these he 
hoped to trade with the Mormons, and other emigrants 
passing oyer that weary road in the season, who were often 
as many as 100 per diem, while in winter he was months 
without seeing a civilized bsing — the pony express^ and 
later the stage, then passing on the '^Southern road," 
much to the south of his location. 

With the emigrants^ generally as poor as himself, he 
bartered his whiskey, tobacco, and other necessaries of life, 
which he gradually managed to "lay in," taking in 
exchange cattle, of which all Western-bound emigrants 
took with them as large a number as their means would 
allow, for not only did they furnish them with milk in 
the totally uninhabited regions through which they 
journej^ed for five and six weary months, but they were 
at the same time the most valuable stock-in-trade of the 
new settlers in their distant homes. Many of the Eastern 
raised cattle, however, accustomed to other feed and plenty 
of water, succumbed to the bovine hardships of the trip ; 
and so Iliff drove many a good bargain, giving for a 
broken-down cow or a tottering steer — mere walking 
raw-boned ghosts of their former selves — a pound or so of 
tobacco or a few glasses of precious whiskey, which seemed 
the very elixir of life to the parched emigrants by the 
time they reached Ilifi'^s store, already two or three 
months on the road. Some miles from his shanty he had 
discovered, amid some sheltering but very broken hill 
country, a very oasis in the alkaline desert, a consider- 
able tract of good hay-land, with an ever-flowing creek 
traversing it. 



352 Ca7nps in the Rockies, 

To this place he drove his purchases, and the nutritious 
bunch grass and total rest, so strange to their weary limbs 
of late, soon fattened them up to their pristine condition. 
Iliff showed in this predilection for cattle a singular fore- 
sight ; for, as the end proved, the dollars so invested accu- 
mulated at a rate before which even the twenty and thirty 
per cent, per annum which Western banks in those days 
gave for ready cash deposits were as nothing ; and, more- 
over, it was storing up money in perhaps the only safe 
way. The Plains from the Rocky Mountains to the 
Eastern portions of Nebraska and the Missouri were, as 
everybody will remember, overrun by hostile Indians, and 
the scene of countless massacres. 

liiff^s shanty was twice burnt over his head by the 
red men, he escaping each time with nought but his life. 
Cattle in those days had, in the eyes of the wandering 
Indians, unlike horses and everything else white men 
possessed, no value ; hence he found on his return to his 
desolated home that his bovine riches, grazing quietly in 
the hills fifteen or twenty miles from the road, had not 
been tampered with by the white man's enemy, who, still 
happy possessors of matchless hunting-grounds, held beef 
in utter contempt as ^' squaw's game.'' For ten years Iliff, 
like so many other venturesome spirits, braved the perils 
of the Plains; and, in 1869, the first locomotive that passed 
over the Union Pacific Railroad, in close proximity to his 
rancbe, found him a ricii man. Not only had he found a 
splendid market for his beef in the numberless railroad 
camps while the road was building, but, while formerly he 
had no hunjan habitation nearer than seventy miles, 
Cheyenne, a city of 10,000 inhabitants, had sprung up, so 
to say, over-night not ten miles from his home. 



Camps in Cowboy land^ 353 

His range, on the frontier of Wyoming and Colorado, 
extended alread}^, in 1872, from Julesburgh to Greeley, a 
distance of more than 150 miles, and about 100 miles broad, 
on which were giazing for years 40,000 head of cattle, 
representing 160,000/., all belonging to the man who scarce 
fifteen years before had driven the first stake of bis shanty. 

What is most instructiv^e about such a career is, tbat 
Ilifi" had in no way to thank luck for his success. His 
losses were often very great ; thus in the exceptionally 
severe and long winter of 1871-2, cattle to the value of 
25,000/. starved, and above 21,000/. were spent by him in 
spring to find strayed animals, some of which, in the agony 
of a slow death by hunger, had strayed 400 miles in 
search of food, part of his herds being finally recovered 
in two different States and four diiferent Territories. 

While thousands of his former mining comrades had 
returned to their Eastern homes half-starved desperadoes, 
and hundreds had found a lonely grave in the mountains of 
Colorado, and a few — a very few, alas! — had been favoured 
by luck and had found great riches, to be squandered 
again in the most incredibly reckless manner, he had 
pursued his course with singular perseverance, and besides 
leaving his heirs millionaires^ had enjoyed for the la«t 
seven years of his life, from his cattle, quite apart from 
other speculations, an income of upwards of 25,000/. per 
annum. 

The first cattle ranch e in Colorado was that of Colonel 
J. D. Henderson, who, starting from Kansas in the spring 
of 1859, bound for the gold-mines at Pike's Peak, was 
one of the first to realize that raising cattle was more 
profitable than gulch gold-mining. He had taken out 
with him on a waggon a stock of groceries and a few 

A a 



354 Camps in the Rockies, 

barrels of whiskey. His first trade with a band of Ute 
Indians secured him, for two barrels of the precious liquor, 
a large island in the Platte River, below Denver. A stout 
and roomy log hut and cattle corrals were built with the 
aid of the Indian squaws, who, while their noble lords 
were lying around, made helplessly drunk by their "trade," 
helped to drag the logs from the nearest forest ; and very 
soon Henderson Island became a favourite rendezvous and 
stopping-place for the Mountain-bound gold-diggers and 
emigrants. In 1861 Henderson had already 2000 head 
of cattle, and trade was brisk. Whiskey _, sold in drinks 
at 2.S'. each, returning 5/. per gallon; while a cow could 
often be bought for a fifth of that sum. 

The wonderfully rapid growth of ranching in Colorado 
— which onl}^ became a State five years ago — is proved by 
the fact that in 1871 only 145,916 head of cattle were 
assessed for taxation, wliile six years later, 483,2 "8 were 
returned, the present number being estimated between 
900,000 and 950,000.« In 1877, 80^000, in 1878, 88,000 
beeves were *' shipped," mostly to Chicago ; while the 
home demand of Colorado in the latter year accounted 
for quite 20,000. Tlius in one year the sale of 108,000 
beef steers realized for the new state (at 5/. per head) 
considerably over half a million sterling. 

" Riding on trail," to which I have already referred, is 
an undertaking requiring on the part of the leader great ex- 
perience, the intuitive natural talent of the trapper skilled 
in *' Plains craft," and the astute genius of a commander 

® In sheep the increase has been even more rapid, for while ten 
years ago Colorado had less than 20,000, it had in 1880 2,000,000. 
These latter figures I obtain from Mr. Fosset's work on Colorado, 
published last year. 



Camps in Cowboy land. 355 

— adroit, firm, determined, of quick ej^e, and versed in the 
mysteries of Plainscraft. From the chief cattle centres in 
Texas it takes from four to six months, from Oregon not 
much less, of constant travel to reach North- Western 
Wyoming. Great mountain ranges have to be crossed ; 
vast stretches of dreary, absolutely barren Plains to be 
covered ; rivers full of dangerous quicksands, in which 
whole herdshave been known to perish, and streams subject 
to the most terrifically sudden freshets, to be forded ; long 
expanses of barren, ashy-hued, alkaline desert-land, where 
for forty or fifty miles not a drop of precious water is to 
be found, to be traversed ; and all this, with two, three, or 
four thousand semi- wild shaggy cattle, straight from their 
pathless home, unaccustomed to the sight of human beings, 
and only too easily startled into a frenzied stampede, 
resulting in general disaster. All this, through countries 
where Indians, if not actually hostile, are— or rather were 
— always ready for a haul, and where Nature herself, in 
the shape of violent thunderstorms and early snowstorms, 
seems to delight in wrecking the fortunes of the adven- 
turous frontiersman. 

Let us examine the " outfit '* of a party riding on 
trail, say with a herd of 4000 cattle. It consists of 
the captain and six or eight cowboys, a large waggon 
with tarpaulin cover to hold provisions and bedding, a 
boy cook, and a bunch of cow-ponies, numbering from 
forty to sixty head, which, if the start is made from 
Texas, can be bought tliere for about 2/. 10.s\, and sold at 
their destination for quite double their original cost. As 
the ponies will be wanted at the ranche, they are usually 
not sold at the termination of the journey. Not infre- 
quently one or two hundred are driven along with the 

Aa 2 



355 Camps in the Rockies:, 

cattle as a speculation, the cowboys making a purse 
covering the purchase and the extra hire of a man to 
attend them. 

Until yery recently, the journey was generally made 
in company with two or three similar outfits ; for the' 
countries through which runs the well-known old Texas 
trail (now of classic name, about which there clings a 
terribly sanguinary history of bloodshed and war) was 
infested with hostile Indians, and the equally dangerous 
and even more cruel Mexican border ruffians. Larger 
numbers afforded greater security. Every man was a 
walking arsenal. Over his saddle-bow was slung, in 
trapper fashion, a Winchester repeater ; the two long, 
ever-present Colts at his right and left hip, his long 
raw-hide lariat looped to his California- rigged saddle, a 
very clumsy-looking and heavy contrivance, necessarily so, 
however, for the strain of a powerful ball making frantic 
efibrts to loosen himself from the. fatal loop must be with- 
stood, and hence every particle of the saddle must be of 
the strongest. 

Hardly credible stories are told of the fate of many 
an ^'outfit''' that passed over the Texas trail eight or 
ten years ago. One quite authentic one may suffice : 
The party in question, consisting of forty-odd men and 
nearly 13,000 head of cattle, starting some 150 miles 
south-west of San xA.ntonio, reached jSTorth Colorado 
after an exceptionally disastrous journey, so decimated 
by stampedes, losses in a fatal quicksand, Indian and 
Mexican surprises, and fatal shooting affrays among 
themselves, that only nine men and little over 5000 
head were left. Now-a-days some of these risks have 
ceased to exist, and an ** outfit on trail '' will rarely consist 



Camps lit Cowboy land, 357 

of more than 4000 head. The reyolver, snowstorms, and 
stampedes are, however, still serious stumbling-blocks — 
especially the former, if part of the crew are recruited from 
the detested "greasers/' viz., half-breeds, or a mixture of 
the native Indian and imported Spaniard. Between these 
and the ^^ whites,^' as Americans of pure blood insist 
upon being called, an instinctive hatred has always 
existed, and will for ever exist ; for, apart from race 
antipathy, the curious marital relations of the two people, 
both impulsively hyt-headed and of a jealous disposition, 
must always prove a source of trouble. 

Thunderstorms, though by no means frequent are a 
source of danger in summer, are very terrifying to wild 
cattle. On the approach of one of these' violent outbursts 
the whole force is ordered on duty. The spare horses — of 
which each man has always three, and often as many as 
eight or ten — are carefully fed and tethered, and the herd 
is *' rounded up," that is, collected in as small a space as 
possible, while the whole force continues to ride round the 
densely-massed herd. Like horses, cattle derive courage 
from the close proximit}^ of man. The thunder peals, and 
the vivid lightning flashes with amazing brillianc}^, as 
with lowered head the herd eagerly vTatches the slow steady 
pace of the cow ponies, and no doubt derives from it a 
comforting sense of protection. Sometimes, however, a 
wild steer will be unable to control his terror, and will 
make a dash through a convenient opening. The crisis 
is at hand, for the example will surely be followed, 
and in two minut(\s the wliole herd of 4000 head will 
have broken through the Kne of horsemen and be away, 
one surging, bellowini): mass of terrified beasts. As an 
American writer on the origin of these panics very cor- 



35^ Camps in the Rockies, 

rectly remarks, stampedes may arise from any cause. Some- 
times an inexperienced cowboy may startle the herd by an 
unusual shout. Sometimes the war-whoop of Indians may 
alarm it. Sometimes a stampede may result from some 
uncommon sight, which, frightening the leaders, will take 
off the whole herd. Fancy a pitch-dark night, a pouring 
torrent of rain, the ground not only entirely strange to 
the men, but very broken and full of dangerously steep 
watercourses and hollows, and you will have a picture of 
cowboy duty. Coiite qui coute^ they must head off the 
leaders. Once fairly off, they will stampede twenty, 
thirty, and even forty miles at a stretch, and many bunches 
will stray from the main herd. Not alone the reckless 
rider, rushing headlong at breakneck pace over dangerous 
ground in dense darkness, but also the horses — small 
insignificant beasts, but matchless for hardy endurance 
and willingness — are perfectly aware how much depends 
upon their showing speed on that night, if it kills them. 
Unused until the last moment remain the heavy cowhide 
"quirt" or whip and the powerful spurs, with jingling 
rowels the size of five-shilling pieces. Urged on by a 
shout, the boys speed alongside the terrified steers until they 
manage to reach the leaders, and finally swinging round, 
and fearless of horns, they press back the bellowing brutes 
until they turn them. All the men pursuing the same 
manoeuvre, the headlong rush is at last checked, and the 
leaders, panting and lashii;g their sides with their tails, 
are brought to a stand, and the whole herd is again 
rounded up. The run has taken them far out of their 
road — led them, may be, into close proximity of hostile 
Indians, or crafty " greaser '^ marauders; and when finally 
dawn breaks, new dangers may await the small contingent, 



Camps in Cowboy land, 359 

who, as is often tlie case, do not leave their saddles, save 
to change horses, for thirty-six hours at a stretch. I once 
witnessed a stampede under similar circumstances, and a 
more strangely exciting scene I have never seen. That 
comparatively few fatal accidents occur must solely be 
ascribed to the matchless riding of the men, and the won- 
derful sagacity and unsurpassable sure-footedness of the 
trained cow -pony. All night long, through rain or fiercely 
driving snow, the watch continues, and when morning 
comes a census is taken. Then only the men find how 
many head have strayed, and some of them are at once 
despatched on fresh horses to find the lost ones. Single 
animals on such occasions have been known to stray 
100 miles, and, to find them, vast tracts of country 
have to be searched. Generally, all are found ; but now 
and again small bunches disappear, to turn up on an 
entirely different range as '' mavricks/' i.e. the name given 
to all unbranded animals, which are the prizes of the 
owner of the range, or of the herd with which they have 
got mixed up. 

Speaking of brands, there are two, the road and the 
permanent brand. The first is not always used, and con- 
sists in a superficial branding of a certain mark, owned 
and registered by the person driving the cattle. The 
permanent brand is applied in the usual manner with hot 
irons, that makes it impossible to be obliterated. Two or 
three letters, or some sign, are chosen for the brand, 
generally placed on the leCt hip in six-inch letters. Once 
registered, the mark belongs to the rancheman, who, if he 
has been long in the business, owns often four or five 
different brands, having brought up lierds on ranges 
which, of course, were already provided with one. The 



360 Camps in the Rockies, 

term " mavrick '^ ii one long in use, and is said to be 
derived from the name of one of the first large cattle- 
driyers, who^ while on trails was surprised on a mountain 
pass, 10,000 feet over the sea, by a heavj' snowstorm, and 
lost his entire herd, consisting of many thousand head, by 
a stampede exceptionally disastrous, for he recovered only 
a small portion months afterwards. Another story has it 
that the temn comes from ^^ Mauviic/' an old Frenchman 
in Texas, who is said to have added largely to his worldly 
stores by a sj^stematic abstraction of these waifs and 
strays. But this last version does not receive much 
credence, as cattle-thieves, like road-agents^ horse-rogues, 
and claim-jumpers generally^ get "rubbed out ^* in an 
uncomfortably speedy manner, long before the ordinary run 
of mortals have time to make a lasting name for themselves. 
The long, fatiguing journey of many months, scanty 
feed on the trail, and overwork, reduce the poor horses, 
half broken at best, to a terrible state of emaciation. 
At such times you will see them stand about with drooping 
head, mere gaunt spectres of their selves, and possessing 
hardl}^ sufficient strength to feed ; and worst of all, the 
winter with its heavy three-days snowstorms and fierce 
cold is at hand, and no shelter except the sparsely- timbered 
ravines of the next mountain range to protect them. It is 
really wonderful that these animals, whose lot is far worse 
than that of the carefully driven cattle — equally accustomed 
to a warm climate as the}^ are — manage to survive a winter 
in these latitudes ; and j^et, if you happen to see them 
ngain in June, you would be more than astonished at their 
first-class condition. Plump and full of spirits, they seem 
different animals. 
^ The herd and the dust-begrimed weary men, after their 



Camps in Cowboy land, 361' 

long. summer's journey, at last arrive at tlieir future home. 
Work of a different kind begins then : the ranche, the 
house, and the " corral " have to be built ; a stock of hay 
for the horses, if such is procurable, laid in ; the cattle 
branded, and then carefully distributed over the range — 
here 1000 head ; there, twenty miles farther, 500 ; and so 
on till the whole herd is "turned out.'' JNot always, 
however, is the long journey accomplished in one season ; 
unforeseen obstacles — early snowstorms and other causes — 
may have delayed them on the road^ obliging the party to 
" lay over " the winter. This they do by stopping at the 
first unoccupied grazing land they reach. A temporary 
ranche is erected, the waggon with a couple of men is 
despatched to the next settlement, often 100 miles off, 
to fetch provisions for the winter^ and there they remain 
till spring, when the "cow-camp " is broken up, and the 
party proceed towards their destination — eighteen months 
and more intervening, in such cases, betweeu the day the 
owner set out on his voyage to purchase his cattle and the 
day they reach their future home. 

The permanent ranche building is often only a little better 
than the temporary one — formed of logs, the interstices filled 
with a mixture of mud and sand, making the inside (one 
chamber, with a fireplace in one corner, and two or three 
bunks along on3 of the walls) fairly weather- tight. The 
do^n- moving on raw-hide hinges, is made of packing- 
case boards, and one small window cut into the logs. And 
yet you will find very contented beings in these miserable 
dwellings. Plenty of vigorous exercise, a life-giving air, 
and tlie absence of the vitiating pleasures of civilization, 
go a long way in making the lot of these jovial, light- 
hearted cowboys by no means an unenviable one. 



362 Camps in the Rockies, 

The social features of stock-raising are as peculiar as tine 
natural ones; and if we follow the steps of the more 
adventurous ranchemen, pushing Westwards, edging the 
red man from his happy hunting-grounds, replacing the 
buffalo and elk with, domestic kine^ we read also a piece of 
frontier history. 

The peopling of a new Territory is an interesting study. 
We see the tide of emigration, called forth by the discovery 
of gold, sweep over the land ; a period of crazy speculation 
and lawless ruffianism ensues, only to end in another 
Westward start for new fields, leaving behind a small 
residuum — the " colour of the gold- washer's pan/' or, in 
other words, the less adventurous but more industrious and 
thrifty, and hence a valuable portion of the emigratory 
borde — as the founders of a new community. 

For the last ten years the ranchemen have played a very 
prominent part in the peopling of new countries, and 
generally of those which, by their elevation or poorness of 
soil, could not be turned to any other use. Not a few of 
Western cities subsist on the stock business ; and portions 
of Wyoming and Montana would no doubt be still the 
dreary uninhabited steppe deserts they were a decade ago, 
were it not for the stock-breeder. 

There are a good many false notions abroad respecting 
tbe general character of Western men. Of the old-time 
gold-digger we have a series of unpleasantly faithful 
pictures in the writings of certain clever American authors ; 
but it would be a great mistake to apply their mould to 
all others, and especially to stockmen, who, as a rule, I 
found to be a thrifty, energetic, and very hospitable class. 
Strangers, and particularly Englishmen, will be struck by 
this last feature — all the more welcome in those uncldlized 



Camps in Cowboy land, 363 

regions, inhabited in our fancy by a race of desperadoes, 
whose only law is the revolver, whose only god is whiskey, 
and whose' one prayer is foul-monthed blasphemy. This, 
however^isnot so ; though naturally — as in all new countries 
where society is jumbled together of the most heterogeneous 
elements ; where one neighbour is a gentleman by birth 
and education, an Oxford undergraduate or a Yale 
College student, whose love for a roving life has led him 
to exchange a luxurious existence for one of activity and 
adventure in the West ; the other, as a strange contrast, a 
rough, uncouth Western-raised "boy," an old prospector, 
or even a desperado, who, after a quarter of a centurj^^s 
adventure in the wilds of Arizona, New Mexico, or Texas, 
has now settled down to steady work on his ranche — the 
English settler will for some time sadly miss the social 
laws which gov^ern the intercourse of different classes in 
the old world. At first he will not like the independence 
of the cowboy under him, who by look and manner will 
let him know that the question who is the better man of 
the two has long been settled in his own mind. His hands 
will itch when some saucy " Do it j^ourself " is the only 
answer he receives to some order concerning a matter not 
quite within the scope of his " help^s ^' duties. In time he 
will get accustomed to the ways and manners of the 
country ; and if there is no false pride about him, the good 
points of the English character, to which none are more 
keenly alive than the Western men, will have gained him 
not only the good-will but the devoted attachment of the 
free-handed boys ! 

To speak of my own experience, I maj^ mention that 
often, cold, hungry, and weary, I rode up to an isolated 
cattle-ranche, bespeaking a meal and shelter for the night. 



364 Camps in the Rockies^ 

The best of everything would be offered. Hay, always 
scarce in those regions, would be given to my horse, and 
the snuggest corner, the warmest blankets be forced upon 
me. Many times have I extended my visit for two or three 
days, and yet not a penny would my hosts accept on 
parting. To this I would fain tag a word of warning to 
Englishmen intending to settle as cowboys. It is " to do 
as others do.'^ That marked feature of America, social 
equality, which, while it has often a way of expressing 
itself in a very extravagant and disagreeable fashion, is 
undoubtedly a main factor in the unusually rapid growth 
of the Grreat West, must never be forgotten by the English 
settler. A ma;i out West is a man, and let him be. the 
poorest cowboy he will assert his right of perfect equality 
with the best of the land, betrayiog a stubbornness it is vain 
and unwise to combat. This is an old truth, and numberless 
writers have expatiated upon it. In connexion with the 
cattle-business, it is, however, of tenfold importance ; in 
no vocation is popularity more essential than in this, for 
let a man receive once the name of being moved by un- 
sociable pride, and there will not be a man in the country 
who, while he otherwise would gladly share his last pipe 
of tobacco or cup of coffee with him, will not then be ready 
and willing to spite or injure him. In no business is a 
man so dependent upon his neighbours, so open to petty 
annoyances, and so helplessly exposed to vindictive injury 
to his property, as in stock-raising out West.^ 

• For more detailed information, see Appendix. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

EISMINISCENCES OF THE WEST, 

** It is not wealth, nor birth, nor state ; 

But get up and git, that makes man great.** 

A Bard of theRocUes. 

The trayeller is often asked for "first impressions" of 
foreign lands he Las visited. The West grows a rich, 
harvest of this fruit, and there are people who never stop 
gorging their minds with the luscious firstlings of frontier 
humour. For mine — to speak of really the first genuine 
impression — I have to thank a far more familiar and 
harmless incident than any of the tj^pical Western scenes 
— the audacious "road -agent/' or grimly- grotesque ''hang- 
ing-bee/' or any of the hundreds of such-like evenements 
that are wont most to impress 'the new comer; I got 
mine, namely, from nothing more or less awful than a 
squealing baby. 

There was nothing very peculiar about the appearance 
of this baby. Not over-burdened with garments, it was 
strapped in Indian fashion to a board about two feet long 
and one foot broad. The board and the baby were lean- 
ing against the log wall of a frontier shanty on its shady 
eide. There was nobody near ; and as I had heard a good 



366 Camps in the Rockies, 

deal about the 'cute dodges employed by "Westerners when 
•^pre-empting*' new locations, the letter of the land-laws 
obliging them to mark possession by some visible and 
unmistakable " squatter's sign," I imagined this possibly 
might be a new way of demonstrating ownership to 
would-be "claim- jumpers/' always ready to pounce upon 
unprotected property. The baby seemed very happy ; 
its little arms were free, and kept up constant movement 
— the only sign of life on the arid, dusty plains that 
surrounded the miserable sod-roofed shanty with oppres- 
sive vastness. Urging my horse a little closer, I remarked 
that some strings were dangling about the baby's neck, 
and that one was tied to the big toe of one of the rosy 
little feet of the infant. I was puzzled. Dismounting 
from my tired ^^ sawbuck," I proceeded to examine the 
arrangement in tape. The child was complacently suck- 
ing at a bit of raw pork, about the size of a large 
walnut, tied to one end of the string, while the other 
was fastened, as I have said, to the little foot, a second 
piece of twine, knotted to the board over its head, pre- 
vented the piece of meat falling to the ground, should 
the child loosen its clutch. Nine men out of ten would, 
I fancy, have immediately detected the connecting 
link between the toe and the pork I was, however, the 
tenth, for at that time you could not have seen anywhere 
a more brilliant specimen of the genus '^ tenderfoot " than 
I was. So what wonder that even that baby began to 
wax wrath at the density of my perception, and with the 
typical Western love of displaying the greatness of the 
"biggest country in the world, sir," it forthwith pro- 
ceeded to give me that first genuine impression of which 
I have spoken. Its face suddenly got very red, then 



Reminiscences of the West. 367 

blulsli its eyes filled with tears^ and its little arms beat 
the air with frantic energy. It gradually dawned upon 
me that the baby might be choking ; at least, had a grown- 
up person evinced such symptoms, I certainly would have 
commenced thumping him on the back. My native 
cautiousness stood a sore trial, for I had heard that to 
tamper with a man's land-claim was an offence visited by 
"shooting on sight." But nevertheless that baby acted 
its part in such a life-like manner that, had not at that 
moment the mother made her appearance, I think I 
should have risked rendering assistance. 

" That baby is choking, ma'am," I cried. 

** No he ain't, and he can't," replied she, tersely and, for 
her, truly, for at this instant the infantile legs also began 
to work — one kick, two kicks, and there on the bib lay 
the obstruction, the piece of pork, jerked from the baby- 
throat by the judiciously applied string, to the j udiciously 
kicking little leg. I was vastly relieved, but also vastly 
impressed. 

^' Ain't you ever seen this a'fore, mister ? " queried the 
woman — as true a specimen of the lady of the E-ocky 
Mountains — a survival, not of the most beautiful, but 
certainly of the fittest as ever I have had the pleasure of 
meeting. 

To my quavering *'No — o — 0" she answered, ''Then 
kind 0' remembrance it ; mayhaps yer wife won't go back 
on it ;" and noticing a smile on my face she added, "but 
I reckon you ain*t married any how ; wa'al, it'll keep, 
3^ou bet." And keep I hope it will, for others as well as 
for me. If there is anything that could possibly tempt 
the most mysogynistic old bachelor to enter a more bliss- 
ful condition, it would, I should say, be the hope of by- 



368 Camps in the Rockies, 

and-by rigging up such an arrangement in strings, and 
seeing it work in his own nursery. 

Several years liave passed since that day. I have seen, 
to speak metaphorically, that baby in a hundred different 
guises, all displaying the keenness of Western intellect, 
and from sheer habit it has become with me a sort of 
standard wherewith to gauge novel and striking instances 
of the three great qualities of Western men — self-help, 
self-confidence, and adaptability. 

But our picture of the frontiersman would hardly be 
complete were we to leave unnoticed another feature of 
the West, namely, its humour. Much has been written 
about American wit, and in the preceding pages I have 
essayed to give some of its spontaneous emanations as 
were wont to crop up on my little travels — genuine 
frontiersmen m}^ companions. Lincoln said the grim 
grotesqueness and extravagance of American humour 
were its most striking feature. In the West it is all- 
pervading ; from cradle to the death-bed, through sick- 
ness and adversity, it cheers the Western man. Removed 
from civilization, we see it in its happiest, most unlaboured 
garb, dramatizing dry facts into flesh and blood. The 
lingo of the West, so rich in happily-coined w^ords, 
stands in close connexion with it. A late clever author 
on Americanisms/ says they are a fair representation of 
the Western world, which has been created on a larger 
scale, which in its turn grows faster, works harder, 
achieves more than any other land on earth has done. 
Slightly toned down, there is a good deal of truth in 
what he says. No doubt the language of the West «s an 
intensifi.ed and strangely impidsive speech, just as the 
» Dr. De Vere. 



Reminiscences of the West. 369 

life's blood of the whole West throbs with a faster pulse 
and courses with fuller vigour through all its yeius. 

In the West good stories are rife_, and to the stranger 
nothing is more puzzling than to tell their real age. In 
the phenomenal complexity of social organism in frontier 
country^ a genuinely healthy good story never dies, and 
even such unwholesome ones as, for instance, Greeley's 
coaching horror, will evince in the naturally salubrious 
atmosphere of the Plains and mountains an amazing 
tenacity of life. 

You hear a good story, and as it is the first time, you 
enjoy it. You go your way, and, if you are lucky, you 
travel from Kansas to San Francisco, and fate permits 
you to grow one week older before you hear it for a 
second time ; but hear it again you shall, let you wander 
whither you will. It will be told you perhaps while sitting 
at your camp-fire on the arid Plains of New Mexico or 
while cantering along at the side of an Oregon " Web- 
foot ;" you possibly have to lend your ear to it in the 
depth of a Nevada silver-mine, half a mile under the 
earth, or on the top of the Great Divide of the Rocky 
Mountains, three or four miles over the earth. The first 
six words suffice to put you on the track of it, let it be 
ever so cleverly adapted to entirely different circum- 
stances, let the narrator make ever so ^' personally con- 
ducted '' a story of it, you immediately recognize the good 
old tale you heard the first time in Chicago, San Antonio, 
or Sacramento, till finally sheer practice enables you to 
point them as easily as were their trails marked in the 
fashion of the Miook Indians in California, who used to 
drag the carcass of a defunct '^fragrance pedlar," i.e. 
skunk, along the intricate paths through the forests, so as 

Bb 



3 yo Camps in the Rockies, 

to enable their friends to follow them guided by tbeii 

noses. 

Some good stones take their origin in tbe Eastern Cities, 
but by the time they reach the Territories they are 
Westernized. The Coroner's good story is an instruc- 
tive instance of the adaptability of some of the Eastern 
tales to Western life. I have traced its origin to facts 
which occurred in IN'ew York a.d. 1879. In that year, 
as I see from a leading New York daily paper now 
lying before me, reporting the proceedings,^ a famous 

case of bogus inquests was unearthed. Coroner D was 

the ingenious official, and in the course of the law 
proceedings it was proved that this gentleman, whose 
domain was Staten Island, near New York, where numerous 
cases of found drowned are the rule, had hit upon the 
ingenious plan of anchoring a corpse in a quiet cove of the 
sea, and holding inquest at will on him. When discovered, 
nine Coroner^s inquests had sat on this one specially 
RKSEiiVED corps, cach putting a shabby nine dollars into 
his pocket. The idea was one that "took.'' Cases of 
anchored corpses were heard of all over the Union. Inland 
cities that had no rivers or lakes handy, had always town- 
water reservoirs to fall back on. Everything gets old very 
quickly in America, and by the time California had gripped 
the idea, it had assumed very mature form, though only a 
iQ^ short weeks had elapsed since Coroner D ^s pre- 
liminary examination in New York, a fact which the 
following conversation between a Californian official and 
a San Francisco Judge, as reported by a 'Frisco paper will 
prove : — 

" * The fact of it is,' said old Dr. Potts, the Los Angelos 
« The World, June, 1879. 



Reminiscences of the West. 371 

Coroner, tlie other da}', as he strolled tlirougli the morgue 
with Judge Yan Snyder, * the fact of it is, that these San 
Francisco coroners donH really understand how to work up 
their business for all its worth, and make it boom as it were/ 

" ' What do you mean ? ^ said the Judge, somewhat 
horrijfied. 

'^ * Why, they don't know how to really run a corpse for 
all the coin that is in it. They don't handle 'em scienti- 
fically, so to speak. Now we do that sort of thing better 
down our way.' 

" ' Do, eh ? ' 

" * Yes. For instance, there was a Chinaman killed by 
smoking opium a few months ago, out in the suburbs of 
our town, and of course I was around there and had sworn 
in a jury before- the cadaver got cold, and what with 
summoning witnesses, taking testimony, &c., before night 
I had a bill against the county for $96. 50.' 

*' ' More than the Chinaman was worth, I should think," 
said the Judge. 

*^ * But wait. I opened the grave in the county burial- 
ground the same night, rushed the corpse down to the labo- 
ratory and had it embalmed, and all readj^ for emergencies. 
Well, about three nights after that they had a free fight 
out at the Digger Indian encampment, and so I had the 
Celestial pigtail cut short, a few feathers twisted in it, and 
hid him in a bush out that way. Of course it was dis- 
covered pretty soon, and reported ; and as the jury couldn't 
agree as to the particular tribe of Indians the deceased 
belonged to, I impannelled another one — nearly double the 
fees, don't you see ? — and gave the papers a rousing good 
item. It's a way-up plan to keep in with the reporters, 
by the way.' 

Bb 2 



'^']2 Camps {71 the Rockies. 

'' ' How mucli did that make? ' 

** ' Well, I was about |240 ahead on tlie speculation then, 
so I waited until a lot of Dago emigrants passed through 
the town, and the next day one of 'em was found dropped 
dead on the road of heart-disease — don't you see ? Same 
old corpse, with a big felt hat and rawhide boots, and his 
pocket full of macaroni. I think I squeezed about $175 
more out of the tax payers that time. Well, I kinder let 
up for about a week after that, and then had the remains 
doubled up in a packing-box and found among the 
unclaimed freight down at the railroad station. The 
papers wrote it up as a '' Mysterious Murder Case/' and we 
had a ten days^ examination. Lem'me see, I think it was 
$445.50 the whole thing panned out before we were 
through that time. What do you think of that ? ' 

" * Why, it's the mQst extraordinary — ' 

" ' Why, that's nothing, my dear sir, nothing. I haven't 
got half through with that Chinaman yet. When I left 
home I just kinder wedged him in among the top branches 
of a tree in the woods just out of town, dressed in a suit of 
complete black with an old telescope in his coat-tail 
pocket, and a pair of big green spectacles on his nose. 
Catch the idea, don't you ? ' 

"^Can'tsay Ido.'. 

" * Why, that's the aeronaut dodge, don't you see ? 
Unknown scientific party, fallen out of a balloon. My own 
design entirely. Splendid, isn't it ? The corpse is a little 
worn by this time, I know ; but what are you going to dc 
with such an infernally unhealthy climate as Los Angelos? 
I expect to send the old lady and the girls to Paris 
n those remains yet, if I have to wire 'em together to 
do it. No, my dear sir, depend upon it what those 



Reminiscences of the West, 373 

metropolitan coroners lack is push, enterprise, sir, and 
ingenuity/ 

'^And the doctor reluctantly stopped poking a defunct 
stock speculator with his cane, and permitted the Judge to 
take him out for a drink." 

Now for the practical application of the tale. 

Four months later an acquaintance of mine, while 
travelling in the wilds of the West, had the following 
occurrence happen to him. I give it in his own words. 

*' On a considerable river we had to cross, notorious for 
its quicksands, we found, much to the surprise of my 
men, a newly erected ferry close to a desolate-looking log 
cabin. The charges written on a board near the cabin 
were high, and would have amounted to fifteen dollars for 
my outfit. The river was low, and my men had crossed 
it several times at a ford they knew half a mile below the 
ferry. They decided to try the ford. When we got there 
we found a freshly made grave close to the river bank, 
and written on a rude wooden cross the following epitaph : — 

* Here are drowned and buried Old John, from Texas, and Lame 
Bill}', his brother. N.B. — The ferry is less than half-a-mile up the 
river.' 

** I did not like this, and wanted to prevail on my men to 
turn back and use the ferry rather than risk the quick- 
sands. But they would not hear of it ; they knew, they 
said, that the ibrd was perfectly safe — which indeed it 
proved to be. The whole outfit had crossed except my 
headman, and when I looked back I saw him, to my 
astonishment, engaged in digging at the grave. Five 
minutes sufficed to show that Old John from Texas and 
Lame Billy his brother had not been old trappers, as in 



374 Camps in the Rockies. 

the innocence of my heart I supposed, but two old mules. 
As the ford was situated on a route frequented by emigrants 
to Oregon, many of these unfortunates would, no doubt, be 
frightened to use the ferry. We happened to pitch camp 
for the night close to the river, in view of the cabin on 
the other side. We had done supper, when who should 
make his appearance for an evening chat but the 'cute 
originator of the grave dodge, the practical ferryman. 
To listen to my men taking him down was worth millions, 
though in Western fashion he seemed very proud of his 
ingenious trick. * Ever seen that game worked afore ? ' 
he asked. * In course you never have ; it's mine ; and it 
pans out boss, you bet, for it runs them emigrant folk right 
up to the squealing-point. It struck me not long ago, 
when reading in an old paper of that yar Yankee Coroner 
who kept a dead man's body anchored in a quiet corner of 
Staten Island bay. That er' chap ought to have come 
West ; too good by a full hand (poker expression) for them 
Eastern folk.' " 

But I must bring to a close my rambling disquisition 
on a theme tliat has yielded, and will yield, food galore, 
for the master-pens of great humorists. Let me rather 
make an attempt to picture another feature of frontier 
life, not so oft described as the equally ephemeral Mining 
Emporium of the great Silver and Gold Land beyond 
the Missouri, namelj^, a pioneer settlement of a half- 
dozen huts that does not owe its origin to the wild crazy 
search after precious metals. To what does it, then? 
the reader will ask. But that is harder to answer; 
perhaps to a broken axle-tree; to a sick child that 
finally succumbed to the terrible hardships of emigrant 
travelling in the ante-railway days — a visitation of 



Reminiscences of the West, 375 

Providence which has hallowed the spot where their only 
offspring lies buried, and upon which the parents have 
not the heart to turn their backs ; — or, what more 
frequently occurred, to a dash of a band of yelling red 
fiends, which, while it left them, as a piece of good luck, 
with their hair on their heads, resulted in their being 
stranded in the middle of the dreary desert-like Plains, 
hundreds of miles from the next settlement, without a 
single horse or oxen left to haul their heavy waggon, laden 
with their all and everything, on to their yet very distant 
goal on the Pacific shore. The next water and timber- 
land is sought ; and a few days' wood-felling and hauling, 
two pair of strong arms, a brace of energetic wills, and 
the first hut of the settlement is sod-roofed, and ready for 
occupation. 

A Chinese proverb says woman's heart takes a lot of 
breuking ; but this could be equally reasonably said of the 
frontiersman's organ. He is constitutionally a sanguine 
being — all his surroundings tend to make him that — so 
that finally when he does strike a '' pocket,'* let it be in 
precious ore or in the way of surer though not so large 
gains accruing from any one of the multifarious under- 
takings this Jack-of-all-trades tackles to, he makes but 
another one of the thousands of vastly energetic settlers 
who, not so many years hence, will have connected the 
rich land of gold and corn — California — with the Mis- 
souri, by one unbroken chain of States, towns, and farming 
or stock-raising land. 

The typical pioneer settlement I shall attempt to 
desi-ribe is one of this sort. There are only some 
eight or ten huts, and its origin was an emigrant's 
break-down, which three or four years ago stranded the 



2)"]^ Camps in the Rockies, 

olded inhahUant in tliat neighbourhood. His few cattle 
have multiplied at a patriarchally fast rate^ and some 
other emigrants to Oregon have acted upon the old 
maxim of the bird in the hand, and have let Oregon be 
Oregon. I visited the spot on two different occasions. 
The first time (in 1879) I reached the few scattered 
log-cabins, nestling under the beetling brows of a 
gorge intersecting a vast upland plateau some 6000 or 
7000 feet over the sea, the inhabitants were in the 
throes of an Indian scare, the Utes had " broken out *' 
150 miles south, had massacred a lot of troops that 
had been sent to subdue them, and were now supposed to 
be on the war-path northwards, ready to do as a kindred 
tribe had done a year or two before, i.e. to sweep the 
whole country, and butcher the solitary white settlers. I 
happened to strike the settlement a day or two after the 
first rumour of the Ute outbreak had reached it. Biding 
a few miles ahead of our men, who folio vved with the pack- 
animals, I reached the cabins some hours before them. 
The men of the settlement were all away attending to a 
distant cattle-di'ive ; they had left before the first alarm, 
and were not expected bick for some days yet. The 
women — there were some eight or nine families — had, on 
receipt of the first warning, held a council of war, in which 
it was decided to retire to a small underground " fort ^' — 
cellar would describe it better — connected by a subterranean 
passage with the largest log-cabin of the settlement. 
It was hastily provisioned ; a woman who was in child- 
bed brought hither, and everybody ready to repair to this 
last refuge at the first approach of the dr.eaded foe. My 
looks, as I rode up to the first shanty, I suppose were not 
very reassuring. Long absence in the wilds of the moun- 



Reminiscences of the West, 2>77 

tains had reduced my dress to the last extremity. The 
skin and venison of a Bighorn I had killed that morning 
were slung over my saddle, and festooned old Boreas's 
flanks, while my hands were still red with the blood of my 
game, as I had passed no water since my morning's kill. 
Altogether I must have looked, astride of my pony, who 
was likewise bespattered by blood, a somewhat uncanny 
character. Not having seen a white man for some time 
past I was unaware of the Indian news, and hence was quite 
unprepared for the shrill '^ Halt ! " that stopped me a few 
yards from the fence surrounding the first log-cabin. On 
looking at the spot from whence issued the voice, I espied 
a huge needle- rifle resting on the top bar of the fence. 
Its business end was pointed at me with unpleasant steadi- 
ness, while at the butt end I descried a diminutive bit of 
humanity in the shape of a boy of eleven or twelve. 

'^ Say, stranger, what the are you, anyhow ? 

Be you a tarnal redskin half-breed, or a white man ?^* 

demanded the miniature sentry, who, on the look-out for 
Indians, \^^anted to make quite sure ere he let me pass. 
My laughing answer was followed by his letting down the 
hammer of his rifle ; and standing up under the shadow of his 
huge old arm, at least a foot and a half taller than himself, 
disclosing to me a bright-eyed youngster of frontier breed. 

*' I am the boss in this yer camp," he replied to my 
query, and taking from his trouser-pocket a roll of plug he 
made a formidable bite at it. I had arranged to wait for 
my men at the settlement, so dismounting and tying up 
my horse, I followed his indication to go into the house, 
" where mam oughter (ought to be) cooking dinner." 

This latter personage, busy with her stove, seemed 
somewhat taken aback when I stalked into the cabin. 



^'^S Camps in the Rockies, 

However, she seemed prepared for squalls— a well-filled 
cartridge-belt girthed her waist, a loDg six-shooter in its 
sheath being attached to it, wbile a Winchester rifle was 
leaning against the stove ready for immediate action. In 
ten minutes the loquacious Western lady had informed 
me of tbe state of things — had told me in what a per- 
petual state of fright they had been the last two days; 
how every soul in the settlement retired every evening to 
their underground '*fort;'' and how they longed to have 
heir husbands and sons back again. She seemed de- 
ighted to hear that my party would presently follow, and 
that we had seen no signs of hostile Indians further north. 
After partaking of dinner, and the boy-sentry being 
relieved by a neighbour's daughter, I made the round of 
the cottuges under the guidance of the boy-sentry, who 
turned out to be a very wide-awake little chap, a 
genuine Western-raised child, more of a man than many 
a swaggering lout double his age further East; his 
astonishing flow of bad language and the constant appli- 
cation to his plug being the only drawbacks to a more 
intimate acquaintance with him. 

I visited the cellar "fort,'* and comforted the sick woman 
with the news of the reinforcements the settlement had 
received. Some twelve feet square, with loopholes where 
the walls, only seven feet high, joined the earthwork roof, 
it seemed a safe enough place, however insufficient in its 
dimensions to hold twelve or fifteen human beings. The 
narrow passage, sloping upwards, some four or five yards 
long, and only four feet high, connecting this cellar- like 
excavation with the body of the log shanty, was so ar- 
ranged that it could be filled up with earth at a moment's 
notice, while the heavy pile of earth that covered the 



Reminiscences of the West, 379 

rafter roof, raising it slightly over the ground, made it 
difficult, if not impossible, for the Indians to fire the 
structure. 

My men arriving in due time, we pitched camp 
close to it, and remained there for two days, giving our 
worn-out cattle a very necessary rest. A part of the male 
contingent of the settlement returned before we left, and, 
as was not unnatural, felt very grateful to us for our 
presence. Some months later, in the depth of winter, a 
very bad snowstorm compelled the '* English outfit,^* as 
my party was called in the Western vernacular, to retrace 
their steps to the same settlement, and there we were 
obliged by stress of weather to "lay over" for an entire 
week. Duiing my stay there Thanksgiving Day, the 
great national fete-day, occurred. Frontiersmen are an 
eminently hospitable people, and thus I was not astonished 
to be invited in a hearty manner by the chief personage 
of the little settlement, the owner of a typical Western 
*^ store," or shop containing the necessaries of daily life, 
such as whiskey, flour, ammunition, beaver gloves, and 
woollen comforters. He was in the habit of giving on this 
day a free dinner to all comers, the expenses of the 
repast, for which a turkey had been provided at the cost 
of a horseback ride of more than 100 miles to the next 
town, being covered by the "drinks," sold at the custo- 
mary rate of a quarter (one shilling) per glass of whiskey. 

Though the sjiowstorm was of the severest, the men 
from the next cattle-ranches, forty, fifty, and, one or two, 
seventy miles off", came riding in, often at the risk of their 
lives, to partalie of this friendly meal, attracted by the 
welcome change in their lonely ranch e life. I was myself 
glad, once again after months of roughing, to sit down — ■ 



380 Camps in the Rockies, 

I was going to say on a chair, but it was a barrel — to a 
square meal, served on a table. 

The inside of the log cabin presented, wlien I entered it 
balf an hour or so before dinner, a typically Western scene. 
The only room of which it consisted, besides the store, which, 
was in an adjacent barn-like structure, was filled with chat- 
ting and laughing groups of men, all attired in the pecu- 
liar, practical, and not unpicturesque frontier dress, ia 
which leather and huge jingling spurs seemed the predo- 
minating features. Tall, lithe men, their faces all aglow 
after their long rides in the storm, their sombrero hats, often 
shapeless structures of felt, set jauntily on their heads, 
cartridge-belt and long six-shooter round the waist, they 
were all busy disposing of their yore dinner drinks. Here 
was a knot of trappers fresh from the mountains, swapping 
stories and telling big yarns. A little aside, speaking 
with my own trapper, I perceived a white-headed old 
mountaineer, dressed in worn buckskin from head to foot, 
who, as soon as he saw me, stepped out and gave me right 
hearty greeting. The old fellow was one of the best-known 
personages in frontier country, for he had been in the West, 
at first as a Fur Company trapper, and later on that of an 
Indian scout, for the last fifty-one j^ears. Port knew him 
well, and from him I heard a good deal of the taciturn old 
stag's former life. Married to a half-caste girl of great 
beauty, the daughter of a well-known scout, his wife eloped 
with one of the '49 miners; and the story goes that he fol- 
lowed the pair through the West for six years, and finally 
came up to them on the frontier of Mexico, with the result 
that shortly there were two people less in the world. He 
himself never spoke of that event, or indeed, with" rare 
exceptions, of any other in his long veteran life on the 



Reminiscences of the West, 381 

Plains and in the mountains. At the camp-fireside, where 
only one or two listeners were present, and these were old 
comrades, his taciturn nature would now and again shake off 
some of its reserve, and the old man would recount events 
bearing upon the subject we were happening to discuss. 
Never by any chance was there about his tales the slightest 
ring of the wonderful or sensational, and what he told was 
narrated in such naively truthful manner that its veracity 
was pleasantly manifest. We had to tell him all the little 
incidents of our expedition, and give him accurate accounts 
of the localities visited by us. Now and again he would 
chip in with some pregnant remark, how in the fall of '45 
or in winter of ^34 he had trapped that 'er creek, or done 
some hunting with the Black Snake Sioux, or wintered in 
a dug-out on some stream we had passed; or how in '62, 
when the Sioux and Soshone were ** out," he had " a couple 
o' months scouting of just the liveliest sort with them 
darned 'Rappahoes (Arrappahoes), the doggarned meanest 
cusses of redskins ever a white man drew a bead on (shot 
at).'' 

Presently dinner — which, in the meanwhile was being 
prepared by the store-owner's wife, aided by a neigh- 
bour's daughter, on the iron cooking-stove occupying one 
corner of the room — was announced ; and the steaming 
dishes of turkey, haunch of bighorn, potatoes, and " corn,'' 
with very grateful coffee as beverage, were placed on the 
long board, on which were ranged tin plates and cups. 
All the guests had indulged in a preliminary ''fixing up"" 
at the " wash-basin," a battered gold -pan, for frontiers- 
men are, as a rule, very cleanly people. I recall few 
occasions that I did not notice the raggedest cowboy 
before sitting down to his meal first washing his hands 



382 Camps in the Rockies. 

in the battered old tin wash-hand basin, and using the 
^' Jerusalem Overtaker'^ — as he calls the remnant of a tooth- 
comb, tied with a bit of string to the fragment of a looking- 
glass, mostly the size of oner's hand, fastened to the logs of the 
cabin. In frontier settlements, when returning from their 
half-yearly roamings in the wilds^ the mining prospector 
or trapper will usually have a general '^^ overhauling^^ to 
do honour to the occasion of again seeing a white woman. 
He will scrub his face and hands with soap and sand, and 
torture himself by the application of his wbetted skinning 
knife to the tangled beard of six months' growth, while 
his sailor's needle and " buckskin " thread are set to work 
patching any very glaring defects in his deerskin or 
canvas wardrobe. Many and manj^ a time have I watched, 
with curiosity mingled with amusement, the behaviour 
of these uncouth men of the wilderness when in white 
woman^s presence. The rough joke, the threatened oath, 
the careless fling of some saucy answer to a fellow crafts- 
man, are hushed — stayed as abruptly as could the hand, 
that in child-like fashion is brought up to the mouth, 
thrust back the half- uttered jest, or the yet unpronounced 
name of the Deity. The Western woman's word is never 
disputed. Her dignity, savoir-faire, and independence make 
her the master of the most puzzling situations. 

An acquaintance once witnessed a scene, which will illus- 
trate the frontier woman's privileges. I will narrate it in 
his own words : — 

'* It was at a remote little settlement, consisting of some 
twenty log cabins, tenanted by burly pistol-girt miners, 
three or four *' baching'^ (bacheloring) in every hut. 
Two cabins, however, knew woman's face, the wives of 
the owners, who were the ' top shelfers * of the little 



Reminiscences of the West 383 

frontier colony. The two husbands, close neighbours had 
some ^difficulty/ and when I became the inmate of one 
of the two ' married ' huts * shooting on sight ' had been 
threatened and counterthreatened. The morning follow- 
ing my arrival, while I was sitting in front of the door, 
the enemy *s lady hove in sight, and passing me made her 
way into the hut, where, while everything from the 
double-barrelled shot-gun, standing at full cock in the 
corner, to two Colts in the belt of the owner, was in 
readiness to receive her spouse, the unexpectedness of 
her " coup " resulted in a grand victory for her. Going up 
to the unfortunate man, she began to belabour his face 
and head with the brawny fists of a frontiers worn an. 
The victim, a huge fellow, who could have crushed her 
with one tap of his sledge-hammer biceps, never raised 
himself from the chair on which he was seated, bat 
presently remarked, in the drawl of his Eastern home, 
*Neow, you'd better skin (leave), or fix for a squar' 
fight, for she be a coming,^ alluding: to his own wife, who 
was approaching the hut. The next day the promised 
on-sight business did come off, and the man who never 
raised his finger to stay the summary chastisement in- 
flicted by a woman, shot her husband — the same fate 
threatening him, only his was the handier of the two 
guns.'* 

But to return to my Thanksgiving dinner. The two 
chairs the hut contained were reserved for the two women, 
the men being seated on barrels and old packing-cases. 
A merrier or more enjoyable dinner I have not often sat 
down to ; and as I looked round and noted the bright 
faces all aglow with rude health, and noted the zest and 
pleasure sparkling in the eyes of at least the younger 



384 Camps in the Rockies, 

portion, mostly Texas cowboys, as full of ready wit and 
fun as they were of dare-devilry, and further remarked 
what a salutary influence the presence of the two women 
exercised upon these rough fellows and their conversation, 
I could not help drawing a favourable comparison with 
similar incidents under like surroundings in countries 
claiming a higher degree of civilization. Not an oath or 
unsuitable word fell on my ears while the women were 
present. 

There were several characters present which I either 
knew personally or had heard about. One, old " Trading 
Jack/' a quaint old mountaineer I had previously met, 
had, much to the astonishment of the party, failed to put 
in his appearance. He inhabited an old dug-out, forty 
miles up the mountains ; for, when the settlement increased 
to half-a-dozen or so of families, the quaint old stag, who 
had lived his life in lonely seclusion, found the country 
got crowded J and had retired to his dug-out in the moun- 
tains. Poor fellow ! while we were sitting there discussing 
the absent one, nearly everybody having a story or two to 
tell of the eccentric old fellow, he was wrestling with a 
terrible death, the details of which I heard some months 
later. He was out setting bear-traps, and while so occu- 
pied he was caught by the heavy beam of one of his 
*^' falls," wbich are so set as to come down with great force, 
either killing the bear outright by breaking his back, or 
imprisoning him. This heavy log had come down on old 
Jack, only maiming but not killing him ; for when his re- 
mains were found some week afterwards, his legs gnawed 
off* by wolves, there were unmistakable signs of his having 
tried to cut the beam asunder with his knife. How long 
he remained alive, nobody of course could tell. Thus 



Reminiscences of the West, 385 

poor old Trading Jack got *^ rubbed out." The preceding 
Thanksgiving Day he had been present, and one of tha 
company, told me how the old fellow, who on account of 
his religious devotion was supposed to have once been a 
preacher, said grace on that occasion. 

It seems that the entertainer had asked him to do so, 
and I must mention that this personage, an old miner by 
profession, had been once blown up in a mine, disfiguring 
his face and entailing the loss of one hand, which was re- 
placed by an iron hook. ^^ Kising and fumbling with the 
hilt of his hunting-knife," my neighbour proceeded to tell 
me, " old Jack began : * Wa'al, boys, it's kinder mean of 
that thar man with the one, eye, iron-hook paw, and 
skunk-backed nose to pass the kiards in that ^er fashion; 
but, boys, I am thar when I am thar, so don^t you bark 
up a wrong tree, and rest for a straddle on that thar blind. 
This thar is a boss day, and I'm always kinder willin' and 
ready to remembrance the Old Boss up in hiven, to thank 
Him for His mighty goodness to us all, w^hen I once gets on 
His track ; so, boys, let's pray, as white men oughter on 
this thar day.' " This quaintly-worded introduction was 
probably on a par for grotesquely -expressed religious de- 
votion with the grace itself, which latter my informant 
had mostly forgotten ; remembering only that the old- 
fellow ended it, not with the usual Amen, but with " Yours 
truly and obediently, Trading Jack." 

Of the Western types present, there was one I would 
desire to introduce to the reader. He sat next to me on 
my left, and for a long time kept silent, but his notorious 
** leading subject ^' was not to be thus subdued. By birth 
a Prussian, a native of Berlin, he had been leading for 
the last eight-and-twenty years the precarious life of a 

c c 



386 Camps in the Rockies, 

prospector, beginning far in tlie East in Missouri, where 
he demonstrated to me the largest coal-fields in the world 
were situated, he had finally reached a point 1500 miles west 
of where he commenced. He was known as Dutch Cent, 
the latter being the abbreviation of hundred, which arose 
from the circumstance that in his long wanderings, it 
was said, he had with the instinct of a genuine Teuton built, 
or as the Western phrase has it, located more than 1 00 
homes for himself. A log cabin is very quickly built, and 
such was the passion of this grey-headed old bachelor for 
house-building, that wherever he stopped for more than 
a passing visit he would build himself a house, and then 
when the fever of prospecting came over him again, pack 
his blankets, tin cup, and gold-pan on his old mule, the 
" oiler Fritz,'* and start out for pastures new. 

In the course of my wanderings I had come upon 
several of Cent's cabins, some mere charred ruins, others 
in a fairly good condition. Another peculiarity was that 
while in ordinary every-day life you could not have found 
a more taciturn companion, whiskey opened his heart, 
but unfortunately only to one single subject, and that of 
ail others — Berlin. To judg6 by his volubility, when 
presently he did begin to talk, he must have put himself 
outside a large dose of '* tangle speech/' His language 
was a strange mixture of bad English, with very pro- 
nounced German accent and frontier lingo, which happy 
combination made it at first somewhat difficult to under- 
stand the old fellow. Not kiiovving at the time his 
penchant for his native city, which I may mention he 
had not seen for close upon forty years, I innocently 
answered his question if I had ever visited Berlin in the 
affirmative, and with that, much to the amusement of the 



Re^niniscences of the West, 387 

boys, I delivered m3^self, a self-immolated victim, into 
liis hands. - With a tantalizing flow of' language, inter- 
larded with even more bad German than usual, he 
persisted in describing to me the wonders of the 
'* Brandenburg Gate " and the statue of "old Fritz '^ — 
Carlyle's hero, Frederic the Great — their position, height, 
dimensions, aspect, material, cost, all to the very minutest 
detail were dwelt on. Finally I got tired of my neigh- 
bour's home- talk, of his incessant **My Brandenburger 
Thor " and ''' My oiler Fritz," ^ so presently with serious 
face I informed him that neither of these monuments 
existed any more, ^' that the Nihilists had blown them 
up." The old fellow looked at me, and though he 
probably did not understand what Nihilists meant, he yet 
seemed to take in the sense of blowing up, for he collapsed 
into welcome silence, and another glass of whiskey he 
presently drank sent him at last to sleep. 

The weather clearing, I and my men made an early start 
next morning, and I had proceeded some ten or twelve miles, 
when to my astonishment old Cent, mounted on a very aged 
and decrepit animal, came galloping after us. On reaching 
us, he hardly took time to answer my greeting, but blurted 
out in anxious tone of voice whether "it was drue de olle 
Fritz was plow up, dem poys pick at the ranche had dold 
hira I had said so.'' On my reassuring and telling him it 
was only a joke, I asked him whether he had come all that 
long way onl}^ for that purpose. "Fd ridden to de end of 
Greation to hear dat,'^ was his answer, and about liis voice 
there was a ring as if he quite meant what he said. 

In frontier country now and again little adventures can 
befall the traveller, though they are much rarer than the 
^ The Berlin idiom, oiler, for alt, or old. 
cc 2 



3?^S Camps in th:, Rockies, 

literature of the West would lead one to suppose. In my 
prolonged experience of the West only two such incidents 
happened to me. IN^either would be worth telling, were it 
not for the very circumstance that during my extended 
visits to frontier regions they were the only two incidents 
of the typical Western character that came within my 
personal cognizance. 

The one which I propose to relate occurred to me while I 
was temporarily travelling with a party of cattle-men. We 
were out of meat, and I had made a light pack-camp to a 
neighbouring range of steep "buttes/"' where I hoped to 
get some antelope ; and on my return to our route missed 
connexion with the men I was with. I had not seen a 
ranche or a man^s face for nearly two days, and the 
desert-like countrj^ seemed totally uninhabited. Striking a 
creek towards evening, I foUov/ed its course, hoping to 
come across a ranche I had heard the men talk of. There 
was a cattle- trail along its banks, so I continued my jour- 
ney after darkness had set in — as I was anxious not to 
delay the party, and I knew they would have to pass the 
lonely outpost of civilization I was looking for. 

It must have been close upon ten o'clock when my 
horse gave unmistakable signs of the vicinity of a human 
habitation, and presently I came upon a beaten trail leading 
to a miserable shanty, half " adobe," half log, the roof not 
six feet from the ground, covered with gravel and earth. 
It was the long-looked-for ranche. All was dark, and not 
a sign to show the dwelling, if so it deserved to be called, 
to be inhabited. The door, or rather the apology for one, 
was made of thin packing case boards, half an inch between 
each, so that neither rain nor snow were shut out. Unpro- 
vided with either lock or latch, it flew open to my kick. 



Reminiscences of the West, 389 

Aloud hallo on my part was answered by a gruff voice 
inquiring who was there. Half an hour later a cheerful 
fire was blazing in the hut ; my horses were led into 
the sacred enclosure of the hayrick^ and a nice supper 
of bacon and beans_, the best the men had, was being 
discussed by me. The two cowboys, the inhabitants and 
owners of the ranche, typical specimens of their class, 
hospitable, humorous, and full of life_, were both Texans, 
jovial, merry-hearted fellows ; and very soon I was on the 
best of terms with them. 

After supper, when I had told them all the " outside ^'' 
news, and my tobacco-pouch of ample proportions, no less 
than the contents of my small whiskey flask, that golden key 
to cowboy heart, had gone the round, the boys proposed a 
game of poker ^^ just for fun." Indeed it could not very 
well be for anything else, for I am very sure my cowboy 
friends could no more have mustered up five dollars between 
them than I could.'' Though, of course, out West among 
such surroundings I would never play cards for money, I 
was tempted to enter into the spirit of the thing, and agreed 
to take a hand. To heighten the fun one of the boys 
proposed to play for " them thar new boots," pointing with 
his thumb to the corner of the hut occupied by a low 
trestlework bench of the rudest construction, on which 
generally saddles, boots, &c., are piled. I hardly looked 
round, and neither did I think of inquiring why the elder of 
the two men wore his left arm in a sling. As a set-off'to 
their new boots I ofi'ered to stake a spare gaudily- 
coloured silk handkerchief that was knocking about one 
£)f my saddle-pockets ; and further it was agreed that he 

* When once out in the wilds, money is not required ; hence it is 
never carried about on one's person. 



390 Camps in the Rockies, 

wlio should " clear oat " Ms two antagonists, i.e. win all 
the markers, represented, in the absence of anything else, 
by matches, each player receiving a full box, was to win 
the boots and handkerchief. Soon afterwards we were lost 
in the intricacies of that great American game; "bluff" 
followed '' bluff/' and between the deals cow-camp stories 
were told with that peculiar zest and dry wit so humorous 
to listen to, and so utterly impossible to do justice to all 
ludicrous exaggerations of facts on paper. Luck favoured 
me, and by a final big hand I collected the sum total of the 
matches on my side of the fire, — we were playing stretched 
out on our robes, using an empty waterpail as card-table, — 
and I was pronounced winner of the boots. *' Guess you 
had better take them off at once," remarked one of them ; 
and to my query what he meant, he told me they were on 
the saddle- rack in the corner. 

Desiring to keep up my incognito a little longer by 
entering into the spirit of the thing, I rose and stepped 
up to the trestlework frame. A very ragged horse-blanket 
was spread lengthwise over the rough wooden frame woik, 
which was nearly six feet in length. Something, I don't 
know what, whispered to me, that a *' put-up job *' — prac- 
tical joke — ^was in the air, so I hesitated to remove the 
cover. The men perceived it, and one of them remarked, 
*^ Needn't be sceered, you ain't afeer'd of dead men.''' 
Before I could answer, he was at my side, and with one 
jerk pulled the cover off. I involuntarily recoiled a step 
or two, for there on the trestle-frame lay a dead man, on 
his feet, as I presently learnt, the new boots I had won ! 

^' By all what's good, ain't you ever seen a dead man 
afore ?" broke in upon the silence, long before I had 
recovered from my surprise. " You see we had a little 



Reminiscences of the West, 391 

shooting scrape last night, and Loafer Dick got the cold 
deck ; he was ar' always kinder ready with his irons, and 
just a bit crooked as how he ingineered his aces/ and it 
warn't his fault that the six-shooter missed fire ; he just 
creased Hiram with his second. Hadn't you won them 
ar' boots, Hiram was a-going to break them in when he 
rides into town to give himself up. But I reckon his old 
on's ought'er good enough for that job; anyhow were'r 
off to-morrow, for I've got to go long and stack the 
Bible " — (appear as witness) — " that all was squar' as a 
new born kid, for, you see, Dick pulled first, he did, and 
it ain't kinder likely that a cuss '11 stand that.*^ 

I slept on the hayrick that night, and next morning 
saw vanquished Loafer Dick laid in his grave. Hiram 
and his '^ pard/' the former with Dick's boots on his feet, 
rode off to the city — a collection of log cabins, ninety 
miles off, where of course the whole case resolved itself 
into justifiable self-defence. 

The bane of now countries is the absence of the re- 
straining and hunaanizing influence of woman. The older 
States of the Union have, as the census very clearly de- 
monstrated, a superabundance of what would make '^suit- 
able wives for the West." There is a good deal of pathos 
in the constant reference to a " home " in some far-away 
eastern or southern states, to which, on a little nearer 
acquaintance with the hospitable and keen-e} ed, though 
rough nien of the frontier, one has to lend one's ear. The 
poorest log cabin, door and windowless, a tin-cup and 
plate being about all that reminds one of civilization, has 
generally about it some little memento of *^ home.'* A 
ghastly *' tin-type" portrait of a buxom dame, or of a 
* Cheated at cards. 



392 Camps in the Rockies. 

young girl, a blurred print of an eastern town cut from 
some poorly illustrated paper, if tlie owner happens to be 
a native of a town, tell their own tale. 

I once happened to strike a ranche more than usually 
remote and unvisited, where the men, two lonely young 
" bachers/' one a native of Yorkshire, the other a Texan, 
had actually during the long summer and autumn months 
not only never set e^^es upon human being} except Indians, 
but had lost, strange to say, reckoning of time, for while 
it was the 11th of November, they imagined it was about 
the middle or latter part of October, and were complaining 
of the early winter. ^' We don^t go much on almanacks, 
you see," they said; " but just to know when to finish that 
last bottle of Christmas-day whiskey, we'll notch off the 
days on the door-posts." This thej^ did, each taking one 
post, so as to control "the count." One of the men 
informed me he had been on three cattle-drives in succes- 
sion, and had not seen a white woman or had been near 
any settlement for two years. The other had ridden to 
the next '*City ''' the previous spring for provisions, and their 
only visitor since then until our unlooked-for arrival had 
been an' old trapper. Game abounding in the neighbour- 
hood, I stopped with them a day or two, pitching the 
camp in front of their cabin. I was not a little amused, 
and often not a little struck by the ideas and impressions 
which my intercourse with these two lonely young 
** bachers^' revealed. 

Over the open fireplace in their hut were hung a couple 
of spare rifles and revolvers, and below them, nailed to the 
logs with old horsehoe nails, were two pictures, one a faded 
photograph of an elderly woman of unmistakably English 
type, the other a cheap print of San Antonio in Texas. 



Reminiscences of the IV est, 393 

Over them and connecting the two was nailed a slip 
evidently cut from the heading of a newspaper, bearing in 
large type the single word *'Horae! *' The very simplicity 
of the display was touching, much more so the words 
of the young recluses when alluding to the aim of their 
present existence, a speedy return to their own countries 
as rich men, a goal to be reached, alas ! only by the 
most arduous labour and exposure to ever-present danger. 
'' I'm going to the old country with Jim/'' said the Texan. 
** I started for it once before when I had struck a rich 
ore-pocket, but I didn't get there quite ; — I got as far 
as Newfoundland." 

More than twelve months later I happened to ramble 
close to the vicinity of this same ranche, and curiosity 
tempted me to ride one afternoon over to their home 
from our camp, in order to visit the two young fellows. 
It was long after dark when my tired horse brought me to 
the isolated cabin more than a hundred miles from the 
next white settlement. A door, I found, had been hung 
by rawhide fastening to the upright logs of the entrance, 
and I also saw that the only window, unglazed of course, 
was supplied with a shutter made of the same material 
as the door, i.e. packing-case boards. The many chinks 
between the logs, of which the hut was built, betrayed 
that the inside was lighted. I pushed open the door, and 
as I did so, the sight that burst upon my eyes, so different 
from what I expected, rooted me to the spot. A bright 
lire was burning in the open fireplace, the source of the 
illumination, and seated on two empty packing-cases 
pushed close together, was our Yorkshire friend Jim, and 
a buxom, fair-haired lass, who in a very bashful* manner, 
was presently introduced to me as " the wife.^' It was a 



394 Camps m the Rockies, 

little picture. The strapping young fellow, his face burnt 
to a ruddy brown, his shapely lithe form clad in buckskin, 
the ever-present Colt in his girdle, his legs encased in the 
long leather ^shaps of the cowboy, reaching up to the hips, 
one arm thrown lightly over the shoulder of the woman, 
while a very lately arrived squalling young frontiersman 
told its own unspoken story, and required not the young 
husband's shy nod towards the young Westerner or 
stumbling explanation to prove that for once a "home,'' 
happy and peaceful, had been found on foreign soil. I 
looked around the log interior ; there in one corner was a 
space screened off by a horse- blanket nailed to the rafters, 
behind which was spread on mother earth their buffalo- 
robe nuptial couch, while a tiny looking-glass, some six 
inches square, hung between the two old pictures, still 
surmounted by that single plain word in big printer's 
type. A new tin cup and a couple of bright plates of the 
same metal had been added to the household goods, but 
nought else had changed, save that the young fellow's face 
was brighter, and that I missed his brother '^ bacher " of 
the preceding year. 

"Said he couldn't stand it, looking on at us two, so he 
skinned out with the wife's brother as a pard (partner). 
If the Indians ain't got them, they have got through to 
Wyoming by this time," was the answer I received to my 
inquiry after the Texan. 

And how, pray, was this happy event brought about ? 
the reader will ask. By a broken waggon-tire, which 
stranded a small party of emigrants to Oregon, — amongst 
whom were the present wife and her brother, — on the Plains 
far from human habitation, for, as must be mentioned, a 
good many emigrants from the Eastern States, especially 



Reminiscences of the West. 395 

those destined for Oregon and Washington Territory, who 
cannot afford the railway, still follow the example of the 
first explorers, and spend six or eight months en route 
from the East to the far West, their household goods 
taken along on waggons, preceded in patriarchal fashion 
by their little herd of cattle. 

My Yorkshire friend and his wife — the latter married 
to him, as I was duly informed, by a "judge" — seemed 
outrageously happy, and I remember few more pleasantly- 
passed evenings than the one I spent in that little isolated 
habitation. Things were looking well with them. A 
series of good winters had allowed his herd of a few 
hundred head of Texas cattle to increase very rapidly, and 
in five or six years the young couple could " go home " 
with a fair competency. 

Some ! What a talismanic word it is ! Amid the most 
desperate company, amid the roughest surroundings, its 
purity remains undefiled. It is an open sesame to the 
heart of the worst criminal, and its hallowed charm is 
nowhere more felt than in the vast far-off West. And 
though its heart-stirring associations are apt to pale for a 
short crazy span before those of an equally cabalistic 
word — gold — few, very few. Western hearts are dead to 
its stirring memory, and none are so hardened as not to 
know moments when, as a grizzly old veteran of the 
Rockies once quaintly expressed himself, *'home is gnawing 
at their bones/' 



APPENDIX. 



/www\/ww%r 



THE WLND EIVEE AND SOSHONE MOUNTAINS. 

The Territory of Wyoming is a square, containing 100,000 square miles, 
and its Eastern half forms a small portion of the Great Western Plains 
{not Prairies), into which England could he fitted thirty times, and which, 
bounded on the East by the Missouri, slope steadily upwards, till finally, at 
an altitude of about 7000 feet, they merge into the foothills of the Rocky 
Mountains, which occupy the great square's Westerly half. All this table- 
laud is a treeless barren, portions of which are of a desert-like character, 
and in earlier days gave the whole strip of country intervening between 
the Missouri and the Rockies — a belt 800 miles wide — the name of the 
Great American Desert. As so often remarked, there is no such thing as 
a chain of Rocky Mountains ; they ar(i entirely separate ranges, intersected 
by high table-land passes, often 100 miles and more in width ; such as the 
well-known South Pass, where, at an altitude of 8000 feet, you see not a 
tree nor a mountain, and, for all you know, might be only eighty feet over 
the ocean — a circumstance similar in its misnomer to the " pass " at 
Sherman, where under precisely the same conditions the trans-Continental 
Union Pacific crosses the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of 8271 feet. 

In this Western half of Wyoming there are four great distinct chains, 
the most Easterly being the Bighorn Mountains, running, as very nearly 
all the ranges of the Rockies do, from North to South. The largest, 
longest, highest, and most important is the Big Wind River Range, about 130 
miles West of the former. It is one of the principal elevations of the entire 
mountain system of North America : 120 miles long, from thirty to fifty 
miles broad, it rises to altitudes of 14,000 feet, amongst thevn the famous 



39^ ' Appendix, 

landmark, Fremont's Peak, which can be seen from places 250 miles off. 
Its Northern end joins a huge triangle-shaped expanse of mountain-land 
with eminences of a little less altitude : it is the Sierra Soshone, a sea of 
peaks, raising an insurmountable barrier to human approach to the famous 
Yellowstone Country from the South-East. I need hardly mention the well- 
known fact, that from the North, from the West, and from the North-East 
the Yellowstone (or National) Park is very easy of approach. In two years 
probably from now a branch of the Northern Pacific will touch that famous 
district. Where the Big Wind Eiver Chain meets the Sierra at a sharp 
angle, there are two passes — " Togwotee " and " Two Ocean," both about 
10,000 feet. The former is very little known, for its approaches are through 
excessively dense forests. All this country is over 9000 feet, and the peaks 
rise to 12,000 feet. 

The Sierra Soshone, of which I will speak first, is to-day, without 
exception, the least known of the numerous mountain chains on the Con- 
tinent. It is more a sea of mountains than a chain, and, speaking quite 
literally, there are portions of it where it can be said with moral certainty 
no white or red man has ever set foot. The first Government exploration 
party who touched the Sierra Sohone was that of Captain Jones, who in 
1873 achieved the feat of crossing the Sierra at both its extremities. 
Captain Eaynolds, several years before, at the head of another exploration 
party, tried to force a passage^ but, after losing himself in the dense 
forest at the foot of the range (notwithstanding his Indian guides), gave 
up the plan of ever reaching the Yellowstone country from the South across 
the Sierra Soshone. Bridger, the most famous scout of his day, who led 
the party, made the characteristic remark that nobody could get across 
that mountain barrier unless he had wings, "for," as he said, *' a bird 
cannot fly over it without taking a supply of grub along.*' Captain Jones 
proved that it was possible, though at the Westerly extremity, and not at the 
centre where we for. ed a passage. It was, however, but partial in so far that 
we proceeded only to the top of the range, and did not descend the Northern 
slopes, where the great Yellowstone wonderland lay spread at our feet, and 
this not because we should have found it impossible, but because I had no 
desire to turn my back on the promised scenic beauties of the famous Wind 
River Chain, which at that period I had yet to visit. 

Captain Jones, in his exhaustive and interesting report on his expedition 
of 1873, pronounces the Sierra Soshone' to be the most remarkable moun- 
tain system in the entire Rocky Mountains ; and from what I saw of it, I 
am decidedly of the same opinion. The original range, of which, as he says, 
we find many indications, lies buried beneath an outpouring of lava rock, 
forming a crust which it is safe to estimate at being from 4000 to 5000 
feet in depth. Numerous deep canyons, such as those of the Stinking- 



Appendix, 399 



water River, show only this volcanic material down to an elevation of 6000 
feet in depth. Except the bizarre Washakie Needle, a prominent landmark, and 
the only . mountain in the vast ocean of pinnacles that has received 
a name, and another nameless one, which I discovered North-West of it, 
which are of granite, the other hundreds— nay, thousands of peaks and 
eminences — are of volcanic origin. We penetrated into this range from two 
sides — from the South and from the East, and more weird mountain scenery 
than was disclosed to me day after day cannot be imagined. Rugged, as 
perhaps no other upheaval in the world, the eye wanders' in amazement 
from the tuvreted and castellated upper surface, to the deep canyons, lined 
with great caverns, pillars, towers, and steeples, often hundreds of feet in 
height. Most of the narrow fissure-like gorges have been produced by 
water-ero-ion through consecutive strata of various lava conglomerates, to 
a depth of 1500 and 2000 feet. Captain Jones says : — 

"Often it seems quite incredible that these chimney -like columns can 
remain upright. In the canyon of the North fork of Stinking-water 
Elver there is a vertical block of volcanic material fifty feet in length, only 
two feet in breadth, and '500 feet in sheer height, standing alone, at a 
distance of three or four feet from the North wall of the canyon." 

We discovered a comparatively easy pass to the highest ground ojf this 
chain by following the East fork of Del Nord Creek, one of the first 
tributary creeks of the South fork of the West fork pf Big Wind River. 
While exploring the Eastern extremities of the Sierra, the human remains 
were found of one of the party of nine prospectors who, in the year 1878, 
were massacred by the Bannocks, and who, it would appear, had succeeded 
in traversing the Sierra from the head of Big Wind River to the head of 
Owl Creek, a feat which it can be safely assumed no one before them had 
accomplished. Captain Reynolds, in his report to the War Department, 
speaks of the Sierra in the following terms : " Directly across our route lies 
a basaltic ridge, rising no less than 5000 feet over us, its walls apparently 
vertical, with no visible pass or even canyon " (this latter is only true for a 
small portion), and he proceeds to describe the several attempts made by 
his expedition to traverse them. On referring to my diary, I find we spent 
over forty days on the Siei ra, including the Ov\4 Creek country, i.e. from 
August 10th to August 24th, and from October 21st up to nearly the end of 
November. 

Between the Sierra and the Big Wind River flows the river of the latter 
name, formed by a multitude of " forks " or headwaters. 

The Wind River is for the first 140 miles of its course, till it makes that 
wonderful bend to the North, a very swift mountain torrent, fordable only 
during autumn. There is a good Indian trail along it, and another, less plain 
one, on the first "bench" of its right bank. By taking the lower and 



400 Appendix, 

easier oae the river lias to be crossed repeatedly ; indeed I remember in 
one day's rido to have swnm it no fewer than five times On one of these 
occasions Henry very nearly losb his life by being swept from his saddle and 
getting entangled in the stirrup. 

The Big Wind River Mountains, of which Richardson in his "Wonders 
of the Yellowstone" (1874), speaks as a snow-clad mountain barrier, which 
no white man has crossed, are a very famous chain, though not quite as 
uncrossed as this author would have it appear, for its va:-t slopes have been 
for years the favourite haunts of several of the more adventurous trappers 
who have joined Indian tribes. I doubt, however, if the top of this vast 
backbone of North America has ever been explored by white men so 
thoroughly as we had occasion to do. According to my diary we were 
camped on the " Divide,'^ i.e. watershed, the highest points of the chain 
— nowhere under 9500 or 10,000 feet — from August 27th to September 4th, 
and from September 15th to October 10th, altogether thirty-three days, the 
interval being taken up by an expedition to the Teton Basin, on the Pacific 
slopes of the chain. 

Lord Dunraven, in his most fascinating work " The Great Divide," gives 
that name to regions immediately to the North of it. It is, however, equally 
merited by the Big Wind River Range. Indeed, considering that the great 
Colorado heads on the Western slopes of that range, within a walk of the 
spot where the <iiead tributaries of the Columbia and Yellowstone 
(Mississipi) rise, I think even a better claim to that title can be advanced 
by the district under consideration. Lord Dunraven (writing in 1876) 
speaks of it as not being well known to him, and says it " can be visited only 
at considerable risk, owing to the restless hostility of the Indians -" and 
again, when alluding to the possibility of reaching the Yellowstone Basin 
by a third route, traversing the Sbshone reservation at Camp Brown (now- 
called Fort Washakie), the identical route we followed, he calls it very 
unsafe, and hence " was compelled to abandon all idea of penetrating to 
Geyserland (Yellowstone) from the Bast (or rather, South'East) through 
mountain passes hitherto untrodden by white man's foot." 

Changes have taken place even since those recent days, and the Bannock 
War of 1878 drove one of the restless Indian tribes into Agency life, and 
cleared for the moment those districts of immediate danger from Indians. 
Tliere are three tribes to whose hunting-grounds the districts in question 
appertain, though none of these tribes penetrate (except while travelling) 
to the upper altitudes of the ranges. They are the Soshones, a very 
peaceable tribe, held in good order by their famous old chief, Washakie, 
who have not killed a white man for close upon twenty years ; the 
"Crows," or Mountain Crow tribe, a very large and hitherto on the whole 
peaceable community ; and the Arrappahoes, a decidedly dangerous tribe, 



Appendix, 401 



one of the few reraaining ones who are ever rendy to take to the war-path. 
Until they receive a final thrashing from the United States troops the 
country cannot be pronounced perfectly Indian safe, for their outbreaks are 
unpreceded by any warnings, and the " strike^" is ominously sudden. We 
saw nothing of Indians or white men while on the Wind River Mountains 
or in the Teton Basin. 

The Map I append comprises the most recent researches of the United 
States Government surveys, although considerable portions of the country 
have not yet been explored. My notes enabled me to add some details, 
especially between Fremont's Peak and Togwotee Pass. 

As I correct these proofs I receive news that very probably the Mountain 
Crow Indians, joined by the Arrappahoes will very shortly make a "strike/' 
i.e. enter the war-path against the whites. As both are powerful tribes, 
persons intending to visit the Wind River or Soshone country this season 
had better exercise some judgment, and inform themselves of the danger 
by inquiries at headquarters. 



THE SKU^K. 

The animals indigenous to the Western Plains of Korth America have, 
up to very recent times, been supposed to enjoy immunity from rabies 
The skunk was the first concerning whom an exception had to be noted. 

Baird gives eight species of Skunk as inhabiting North America. M. 
mesoleuca, Whitebacked S. (Mexico) ; M. varius, Longtailed S. (Texas); M. 
occidentalis, California S. ; M mephitica. Common S. (Western Plains) ; 3f. 
bicolor, Striped S. (Southern Texas) ; M. mesomelas, Blackbacked S., 
Louisiana (?) ; M. leuconata (Mexico) ; M. macroura (Mexico); M. vittata 
(Mexico) — the last three named species being of doubtful character. 

The skunk's reputation was never of the fairest. The old Canadian 
voyageurs called it 'Enfant du diahle — child of the Devil; and the discovery 
made within the last ten years that its bite at certain periods produces 
hydrophobia, has invested it with further horror, especially as researches 
have as yet not been able to explain or to account for the epidemic ap- 
pearance of rabies in skunks. 

Science, it is well known, has demonstrated that rabies is the parent 
disease of hydrophobia; that the latter attacks only the human species, 
while rabies, quite distinct from it, victimises animals. It is, therefore, 
erroneous to apply the term hydrophobia to a rabid dog. Sir Thomas 
Watson, an authority on the subject, further maintains that, while in tho 
canine race rabies can propagate rabies, hydrophobia does not ever produce 

D d 



402 Appendix. 

itself. There would be no hydrophobia were there no rabies ; there can be 
no rabies unless it be communicated by a rabid animal. 

It has always been remarked that rabies canina breaks out at various 
epochs with exceptional violence, and then remains dormant for a longer 
or shorter period. In certain countries it is tc the present day perfectly 
unknown. Thus in Australia and New Zealand no case of rabies is reported 
to have occurred (up to the year 1872). Greenland and Kamchatka are 
also entirely free from it, while to other regions this fell disease evinces a 
special predilection, Algeria being, perhaps, if not the most, at least one of 
the most, dangerous countries. To the Arabs, as several eminent authorities 
have shown, it was known long before the French Conquest. One authority. 
Dr. Eoucher, goes, indeed, so far as to maintain that rabies was not 
imported, but indigenous in Algeria. 

The geographical distribution of rabies affords much interesting study. 
Careful investigation leaves no doubt that the facilities for increased com- 
municatiisn with different and hitherto little known quarters of the globe 
have of late years much extended its area, and, by introducing it into coun- 
tries where, until recently, it had not been known, has tended to generalize 
the malady. The case in question is a striking proof of this. Up to the 
year 1871 the Westei-n Plains had been singularly free from all symptoms 
of rabies, and in all the accounts of early Plains travel and the setthng up 
of Western Territories we find up to that year not a single instance men- 
tioned of mad dogs or wolves. It is true Western civilization is but of 
yesterday's creation, but yet portions of the country have been known to 
explorers and travellers for more than half a century, and the great number 
of dogs to be found round most camps of the wild tribes of Indians would 
have opened many channels for a rapid extension of rabies all over the 
Plains Medical history shows that, while rabies has frequently followed 
the introduction of European dogs into new regions, it has also appeared in 
an epizuotic form in countries where it had been previously unknown, the 
most remarkable instance being, perhaps, one which occurred in Peru in 
1803, the appearance of which could not be traced to any foreign source. 

From the various authentic sources now at the disposal of the curious, it 
has become patent that skunks are as liable to epidemic i*abies as are wolves, 
foxes, and dogs ; but unlike the latter, which for a long time have been 
known to be subject to rabies, the first appearance of the disease among 
skunks in the Eastern States of America is also of very recent origin. 

Of the two or three American writers who have made a study of this new 
disease, termed rabies mephitica, the two most prominent occupy very 
antagonistic platforms. One lends the whole weight of his observations 
to the opinion that rabies among skunks is an entirely new disease, and 
bence that the malady caused by inoculation of its venom is not the same 



Appendix, 403 

hydropliobia as results from the bite of a mad dog. The other argues that 
the rabies mephitica is identical with rabies canina, or, in other words, 
that no such disease as rabies mephitica exists, and that the hydrophobic 
effects of the bite of rabid skunks are precisely the same as those of the 
bite of a mad dog. A third theory advanced by certain writers (Colonel 
Dodge, in his work *• On the Plains," is one who makes statements to this 
effect) is that hydrophobia is the natural result to man of skunk bites, 
meaning that bites inflicted by that animal, whether diseased or healthy, 
result in hydrophobia. This, I am inclined to think, is a mistaken view, 
as I know personally of a good many cases of skunk bites that have had 
no bad effects whatever, my own case being one of dozens that are perfectly 
authentic. 

In the summer (August) of 1871 the first authentic instance of hydro- 
phobia occurred West of the Missouri. It was the result of a bite from a 
skunk, an injury which hitherto had been considered a comparatively harm- 
less wound, and never known to result in any way seriously to the person 
bitten. It took place in Colorado, and the sufferer, a buffalo-hunter named 
Ashby, treated the injury in the then usual way, of taking internally large 
doses of the only handy medicine, i.e. whiskey — a powerful antidote for 
rattlesnake biten. The arm, however, swelled rapidly, and a feeling of 
oppression and uneasiness overwhelmed him, so that he finally went to seek 
the assistance of the nearest medical practitioner, Dr. O. Clark, from whose 
own mouth I have these details. Ashby had been bitten on the arm while 
trailing a wounded deer, and the first medical treatment he received was 
seven days after the infliction of the wound. He rapidly grew worse, and 
notwithstanding large doses of morphine, his final paroxysms, wh ch took 
place on the sixth day, introducing death, were terrible to behold. Dr. 
Clark had never seen a case of hydrophobia before, and, while the symptoms 
left no room to harbour doubt that the man was suflering from it, the sight 
of the death agonies made upon him the most lasting impression. Dr. Clark 
soon afterwards returned to his Eastern home, and has never since had 
occasion to treat bites of the skunk or any other animal in trans-Missourian 
countries. This occurred, I believe, in August, and I particularly mention 
Dr. Clark's testimony, for, so far as I can learn, it was the first case West 
of the Missouri. In September and October, 1871, several fatal cases were 
repurted, and from that time up to the summer of 1873 hydrophobia 
caused by skunk bites was a frequent occurrence on the Plains and foothills 
of the Rocky Mountains. It has since never entirely died out, and every 
year some few cases of fatal results from skunk bites are reported. But 
it is very evident that it is no longer of epidemic frequency. 

I will here give some of the evidence collected by the two writers to 
whom reference has already been made. The first to write ou the subject. 



404 Appendix, 

was the Rev. Horace Hovey, who is also the theorist claiming to have 
discovered in rahies mepliibica a nevy disease. He remarks, too, that 
•possibly there may be a causative connexion between the inactivity of the 
anal glands, squirting the nauseous fluid, and the generation of malignant 
viras in the glands of the mouth — an opinion which his adversary claims 
to be conclusively proven by certain evidence he brings forward. The 
Eev. H. Hovey lived in Kansas city, 'at that time the great centre of the 
buffalo hunting trade, occupying thousands of men. Within a compara- 
tively short time from the fall (autumn) of 1S71, in the summer of the 
following year, he obtained particulars of forty-one cases of rabies, all 
proving fatal except one. At that time, it must be remembered, most of 
the persons bitten were entirely ignorant of the dangerous epidemic, and 
of the fatal results ; and, as bites from skunks had been, since the first 
settling up of the country, of not infrequent occurrence, there was therefore 
in the majority of cases, none of the nervous forebodings to which the 
appearance of hydrophobia in certain cases gives rise. The men bitten 
were all robust, hale men, who attached but little importance to the scratch 
of an animal the size of a large cat. In most of the cases Mr. Hovey 
enumerates (he gives the names of the men, date, and place with all 
accuracy) the period of incubation varied between ten days and five months; 
the majority, however, ended with death within the first five-aud-twenty 
days, which in all cases took place amid the most terrible convulsions. This 
writer maintains that the final frightful struggles of naiure to eliminate the 
poison are more prolonged in rabies canina than in rabies mepJiitica. He 
remarks, too, that no constitutioiial changes take place in the latter*, such as 
are well known to occur in the former ; and equally does the absence of 
certain nervous symptoms constitute a conspicuous difference between the 
two species of rabies. In every case, where there was time, the wound 
healed easily and permanently, and in several instances not even a scar was 
visible ', and in no case that came under his notice was there recrudescence of 
the wound, as generally follow the bite of other rabid animals. Indeed, 
there were so few premonitions of any kind that, in most instances, the 
attending physicians themselves supposed the indisposition to be simple 
and trivial, until the sudden appearance of convulsions taught them 
differently. 

Dr. Janeway, at one time military surgeon at Foit Hays, is the second 
authority to which I have m^de reference. In bis introduction to a very 
painstaking paper, he tells u; that he has personally witnessed fifteen fatal 
cases of hydrophobia, six caused by the bite of skunks, three by wolves, 
and two by hogs ; and hence his testimony is of especial value. In his 
opinion, the malady produced by the virus of the skunk is simply hydro- 
phobia, and the disease itself is identical with rabies canina ; and likewise 



Appendix, 405 



he fdls to agree with Mr. Hovey, that mephitic inoculation is certain 
death. He pi'oceeds to mention in detail numerous fatal cases of skunk 
bites treated by him, in which the symptoms were precisely similar to 
those of hydrophobia caused by the bite of dogs, in which the period of 
incubation varied between thirteen and twenty -four days. He attributes 
the higher percentage of deaths resulting from skunk bites to the circum- 
stance that the skunk is of nocturnal habits, and attacks at night, and 
generally bites exposed parts of the sleeper's body, the alte of the nose, the 
lobe of the ear, the thumb, or one of the fingers. There is no doubt that 
clothing, in very many cases, prevents inoculation by removing from the 
teeth the poisonous saliva; and it is interesting to note that Dr. Janeway's 
personal experience proves this circumstance very conclusively. At a 
frontier post (Port Earned, in Kansas) a mad wolf suddenly sprang upon 
the officer of the day while he was making his rounds, and bit him on the 
arm through his clothing. Passing on, he bit a sentinel on post in the 
wrist, between the sleeve of his coat and his glove, and then sprang upon a 
woman who was nursing a child near by, and bit her on the shoulder 
through a thick woollen shawl. All the cases were treated the same. The 
officer and the woman escaped, but the soldier died of hydrophobia. A 
European authority, M. Bouley, General Inspector of Veterinary Schoola 
in France, has had similar experience in the matter of bites of rabid dogs. 
According to him, the documents of investigation furnish ample infor- 
mation respecting the iunocuousness of bites, according to the different 
parts of the body upon which they were inflicted. Out of 73 cases in which 
the wounds were inflicted upon the hands, 46, and of 32 cases when the 
face was bitten, 29 resulted fatally ; while out of 52 cases when the bite 
was inflicted on either the arm or lower limbs covered by clothing, only 15 
ended with death. Dr. Janeway says, that in all the fatal cases of skunk 
bite observed by him, the stages of the disease were more or less marked 
by symptoms of acute melancholy. An indefinite feeling of dread, and a 
general malaise were chiefly prominent, and, as he specially remarks (he 
is speaking of the years 1871-73, when the epidemic raged), to most of 
the unfortunates the fearful result of the trivial wound they had received 
was unknown, and they were unaware of their perilous condition. 

The percentage of fatal results of bites from rabid skunks is a very high 
one — much highei*, it would appear, than from all other animals. Sir 
Thomas Watson states that in this country the number of deaths from 
hydrophobia varies between 1 in 21 or 25. The saliva of mad wolves is 
more dangerous than that of dogs. Thus at Troyes, in 1774, of 20 persons 
bitten by a rabid wolf 9 died ; while in another instance 10 deaths out of 
17, and in a third case 14 deaths out of 23 persons bitten by a wolf in a 
similar condition, leave no doubt on this score. 



4o6 Appendix. 

In the United States, racoons also, at rare intervals exhibit rabies, and 
the well-known instance of the terrible death of the grandfather of the 
present Duke of Richmond, who, while travelling in Canada, was bitten by 
a rabid fox, gives colour to Mr. Youatt's opinion that badgers are also 
subject to rabies. Regarding the possible recovery from the bite of a rabid 
skunk, all authorities agree that the chances are small. Dr. Janeway, 
indeed, reports but one, to which I shall presently allude. 

It is now a well-authenticated fact that rabid skunks are entirely free 
from the odour so characteristic of these animals, which could not occur if 
the secretion was not exhausted. To refer to my own case, this circum- 
stance was fortunately not known to me at the time I was bitten, for it 
would have greatly added to the unpleasant suspense of not knowing 
whether the animal was rabid or. not; for it so happened that the skunk, 
after biting my finger while I was lying asleep on the ground (in the 
foothills of the Rocky Mountains) scampered off without leaving any of 
his scent. 

According to Dr. Janeway, and the testimony of others I questioned on 
this matter in the course of my several trips on the Plains and in the 
Rocky Mountains, intense thirst is one of the most prominent signs of 
hydrophobia from skunk bites; the sound of splashing water, or the sight 
of it, invariably bringing on the terrible convulsions peculiar to this disease. 
I heard, however, of several cases where the patient could drink water 
through a straw irom a covered vessel. Dr. Janeway also remarks that 
morphia and hydrate of choral are frequently, whether applied by hypo- 
dermic injection or externally, perfectly effectless. 

Among the numerous remedies employed in the ti-eatment of bites of 
skunks supposed to have been rabid, those recommended by Dr. Janeway 
appear to me to be the most rational — namely, free use of nitrate of silver. 
After repeatedly removing the eschar of the wound, he cauterized it so as 
to promote suppuration. He also gives a most interesting account of a 
cure, the only one he claims to have performed, effected by him with very 
copious doses of strychnia, beginning with one-sixteenth of a grain every 
three hours, gradually increased to the enormous dose of half a grain of 
that deadly poison, As the man did not die of the drug, which he had 
taken in quantities sufficient to kill ten men, it shows either that he was 
inoculated and that the strychnia acted as a tonic to the nervous system, 
thus enabling it to resist the invasion of the disease ; or that he was not 
inoculated by the virus when bitten, but exhibited a wonderful tolerance 
for the drug. Dr. Janeway claims that the former of the two was the case, 
and argues (I think with perfect justification) that; as a companion of his 
patient, who was bitten by the same skunk and at the same time, died of 
hydrophobia within ten days, his remedy very probably saved the man's Ufa. 



Appendix, 407 

If we let ourselves be tempted to examine a nauseous matter — the fluid 
ejected by the healthy skunk, and with which rabies, as we have heard, 
stands in intimate causative relationship — its physiological role is obvious. 

While it is, of course, no longer necessary to refute the vulgar notion 
once prevalent, that the secretion was that of the kidneys whisked about by 
the bushy tail, and other unfounded tales not less ridiculous, it is not so 
generally known that the sole use of the muscular covering enveloping the 
anal glands, and capable of coir pressing this reservoir, is to eject the liquid. 
The teatlike projections have, according to Dr. Parker, one large oi'ifice for 
a distant jet of the substance, and also a strainer with numerous holes for a 
near but diffusive jetting of the matter. 

As a curiosity may be mentioned the case cited by Audubon, according 
to whom Professor Joes, of Newhaven, gave three drops a day of the fluid 
to an asthmatic patient. The invalid was greatly benefited, but he soon 
was afflicted by the mephitic secretion peculiar to the skunk, and became so 
highly offensive, both to himself and those near him, that the cure had to 
be stopped. 

Travellers have spread the belief that the instantaneous death of the animal 
always prevents an escapeof the well-known effluvium. This I can bynomeans 
share, and as T find my experience in this respect is shared by Dr. Couesf 
who some years ago published a most exhaustive treatise on North American 
Mustelidse, I am emboldened to mention it. I know of no death quick 
enough to frustrate the ejection. I have very frequently blown skunks' heads 
off, approaching the muzzle of my six-shooter or express rifle to within two 
or three inches of their heads — indeed, one or twice they have had the 
steel between their teeth when I pulled, and in not a single instance has 
the victim failed to discharge his glands, though very probably it was 
caused by a spasmodic contraction of the muscles. Some authorities 
maintain that while in daytime the discharge is invisible, a certain 
phosphorescence renders the fluid luminous by night. I never noticed 
this, though perhaps the exceedingly dry air of the Eocky Mountains 
foothills, to which my acquaintance with the skunk is confined, is a locality 
not as favourable for the development of the phosphorescent qualities as 
the more humid atmosphere of Eastern states. 

It is interesting to note that, similar to rabies canina, the malady to 
which the skunk is subject does not appear by any means only in hot 
weather. Thus, September, October, 1871 j March, April, May, September, 
October, 1872, and the Spring mouths of 1873 furnish the larger pro- 
portion of cases both of rabies and hydrophobia. 

The spring, summer, and autumn of 1872 witnessed the height of the 
epidemic out West. Not only were there many rabid skunks, but wolves, 
foxes, and wild cats seemed similarly affected, and several cases of hydro- 



4o8 Appendix, 

phobia in consequence of bites of the last-mentioned animals were reported 
to me when travelling through the regions where the ravages of rabies had 
been most virulent. 

To epitomize for practical purposes the whole subject of skunk-bites, I 
would lay stress on the following points : If you are bitten, endeavour to 
ascertain whether the skunk is rabid, which, if you have the chance, can be 
best done by trying if his anal-glands have ceased to perform their duty. In 
this case — a very remote one — so long as no new epidemic occurs, I would 
use a knife very freely in cutting out as soon as possible the flesh or 
muscles surrounding the surface of the bite, or, if it is a deep bite, make a 
cone-shaped incision. This, however, I would only do if no clothes or 
covering protected the part bitten; for with covering the chances of 
inoculation are very remote indeed. As in all similar cases, the quicker 
the knife or the cautery is applied, the better the chance of effectual 
preventative. 



BEDS. 

The most practical bed for a tour like mine, where many exigencies have 
to be taken into consideration, consists of the following articles :— first, and 
most important of all, is the waggon-sheet cover. This, as its name implies, 
is a large piece of stout canvas (such as is used for tents is the best), from 
sixteen to eighteen feet in length, and from eight to ten feet wide, large 
enough to cover the big freight waggons, and hence to be procured at every 
outfitting place. This is folded lengthwise, and when the bed is to be made, 
spread out on the ground. On one half of this long canvas strip are laid 
buffiilo robes or blankets (one robe and two pair of best California blankets 
suffice for autumn weather), those on which you lie, as well as those with 
which you cover yourself. Before getting into bed, draw the other half of 
the sheet over your bed. Being eight or nine feet long, it will not only 
cover all your bed, but lap over your head. This is an important point, for 
otherwise the rain or snow would beat down upon your head, or if that is 
under the blankets, which it most probably will be, soak your blankets. If 
properly made and laid, your bedding will be thoroughly protected against 
such unwelcome visitations. In travelling, this canvas sheet, into which 
all your blankets are rolled, and round which a stout strap is passed, will 
protect the latter, and makes of the whole a bundle just of the right weight 
and size for one side of a pack. If the outfit is that of a trapper, and not 
that of a well-fitted-out shooting-party, a difibrent use is made of the 
blankets when en route. They will be used as saddle-blankets under the 
pack-saddles. My men habitually did this with their blimkets, and when 



Appendix. 409 



tliat disastrous prairie fire reduced our blankets, mine, which hitherto had 
escaped that fate, were turned into saddle-blankets during the day, and 
used for the bed at night. At fiist this is not pleasant, as very often you 
have no chance to air and dry them before you make up your couch, and 
hence will have to put up with a damp bed j or if the thermometer sinks 
low, they will be metamorphosed into boards. During that fearful snap of 
cold which surprised us last November, it was generally quite impossible 
to prevent this, for as soon as the blankets were removed from the steaming 
horses they were frozen hard, and one had to be quick to get them spread 
out before they turned stiff as sheets of tin. At such times buffalo robes 
come in capitally, and with one under you and one over you, and a pile 
of " boards '' stacked on top, we had nothing to complain of — at least 
as long as no snow hurricane was blowing. When that is raging you have 
to take refuge to heavy logs of wood, stones, or half-a-dozen pack- 
saddles, scientifically distributed over your bed, to keep anything on it. 
It has often occurred to me that sleeping-bags, lined with fur and made on 
the principle of those in use in the Pyrenees, would be capital things for 
men travelling in a more luxurious way than I did. For " roughing it,** 
there is, however, nothing like a waggon-sheet, for it can be turned to 
various uses. As a windbreak, tied to two trees and weighted down, it is 
unrivalled, and in emergencies it will make a capital dog-tent. We 
weathered two very bad snowstorms in one rigged up with a few poles and 
a waggon- sheet. 



THE CLIMATE OF WYOMING AND MONTANA. 

FiiOM Mr. Strahorn's " To the Rockies and Beyond," I take the following 
statistics regarding observations made at Fort Benton (Montana) : — 

In 1872 there were 305 perfectly fine cloudless days; in 1873, 291; 
1874, 277; 1875, 289; 1876, 286; 1877, 300; giving an average of 291 
fine days per annum. The average temperature in January for the eight 
years beginning 1867 was 20° 2', the greatest extreme cold (presumably 
during day-time) being, in 1875, —44° Fahr., and, as the papers reported, 
in 1880 (November), —52° Fahr. In Virginia City, 5713 feet over the sea, 
the greatest heat in 1877 was 94°, while for six winters the thermometer 
never went below —19° Fahr. 

Mr. Granville Stuart, well-known as the oldest settler of Montana, for 
he came tV ere in 1857, has made faithful observations of the climate of 
Deer Lodge Valley, in that Territory, which, it may be mentioned, lies ou 
the same parallel of latitude as Venice, and he has come to the conclusioa 
that the hard winters seem to come exactly five years apart ; but this ia 



4IO Appendix. 

hardly borne out by the fact that the two severest winters he noted in tlia 
West were those of 1857-8 and 1880-1. On the former occasion the mean 
temperature for January was 1|° Fahr., or SOg" of frost : 1875 being also a 
hard winter. The average snowfall for the four winter months for eight 
years was not more than 24| inches. With the exception of the severe 
winters, cattle and sheep owners experienced no losses to speak of. In one 
respect Montana has the advantage over Western and even Central 
Wyoming, for being less of a high table-land, there are more sheltering 
mountain ranges against the very severe blizzards, or winter storms, which 
in Wyoming rage with a violence nobody who has not lived through one 
can possibly imagine. 



OUTFIT FOR SPOETSMEK 

Aems. — If the sportsman intends to visit only the Rocky Mountains, a 
shot-gun will be found an encumbrance. As accidents to rifles are not 
infrequent, especially in the case of the slender-stocked English Express, 
the following plan, I found, works very well. Take one double-barrelled 
•450 or 'SCO-Express and one of Bland's Cape rifles (one shot, 12 bore, and 
one Express-barrel), and have them made, so that the stock and barrels 
of both arms are interchangeable, thus if you break the stock of your 
Express you can use the one of the Cape gun, and vice versa. The shot- 
barrel will come in useful for a change of grub in the way of grouse, 
though, being very tame birds, they can very easily be killed with the rifle 
by shooting their heads off. The Express rifle should shoot a solid bullet 
in one barrel. For grizzlies there is nothing like a long cannelured (not 
patched) missile, though if made very long it will perceptibly increase the 
recoil. On the whole, I think a •500-bore better than -450 for the Rockies. 

PowDEE. — The American powder is nearly as powerful as our best 
grades. For Express purposes I have found the coarse-grained Orange 
LigMning brand to answer remarkably well. 

Carteidqes. — If a longer stay is meditated, it answers much better to 
takeout empty cartridges and reloading tools, and load your sAe?^^ yourself, 
or let your men do it for you. The solid-drawn straight shells of the 
National Arms and Ammunition Company at Birmingham are, I have 
found, decidedly superior to those manufactured by Eley Brothers. The 
former are more uniform in size, and their cap (containing the anvil) is 
better than Eley's plain cap. I have had a good many missfires with the 
latter, and only one with the former. 

Wads. — The lubricating wad suitable for hot climates I have found to 
be worse than useless for the West, as somehow it seems to foul the barrels 



Appendix, 411 



very quickly, particularly in cold weather. I always use a thick felt un« 
greased wad over the powder, and on it, when in the cartridge, I place a 
little fat, such as Elk -tallow, &c. This, I found, gave me the best results, 
and it allows more powder. 

EXPEESS Bullets ought to be taken with you. 

Eevolvee. — If a revolver muHt be taken, then a small •450- Bulldog is as 
good a weapon as can be recommended for purposes of self-defence at close 
range, the disabling powers of this pistol being, on account of its large bore, 
of fair amount. 

A Tool-Box, or better, a "tool hold-all" of leather, to be rolled 
together, is an indispensable article. Messrs. Holtzapfel and Go's., Charing 
Cross, and the Army and Navy Stores, are good places for this. Hunting 
Knives, containing a dozen or two of domestic tools, are not useful things. 
If attached to the belt — the only way the cumbersome knife can be carried 
— they are very liable to be lost. For my part I would recommend a 
smaller pocket-knife to be carried in the pocket (made of oV-toois-leather), 
and a proper skinning-knife worn at the belt. The only place where, so far as 
I know, these somewhat oddly-shaped tools can be bought in London is at 
Silver and Co., Cornhill, where they are sold as " Green River Knives,* 
for 3s,, including case. 

A Camp Bucket is a most useful article. While the bucket itself can be 
used as water-pail, the rounded lid as washhand basin, the former, when 
packed, contains the entire hardware crockery — plates, cups, kettles, fry irg- 
pans, tea, coffee, sugar, and salt-tins, knives, forks, and spoons, for the 
entire party. Laugton and Sous, King Edward Street, E.C., made me one 
to my design which worked capitally. Its weight for four people is about 
25 lbs., cost 3Z. to 4Z. They should be used once or twice on picnics, &c., so 
that no entering-duty will have to be paid. 

" Rucksack,^' oe Stalkee's Bag is, as I have said, for all sporting 
purposes a most useful article ; also, as I maintain, for carrying spare 
cartridges, concerning wliich there was lately a lively controversy in the 
'Field. Its three chief points of merit — the easy distribution of all weight 
carried in it, and the circumstance that when not used it can be stuffed 
into a coat-pocket, while when required it will hold an entire roe-back, 
and being waterproof — place it quite beyond the competition of the old- 
fashioned game-bag and knapsack, both inventions that for unpracticalness 
could take prizes. The only place in England, so far as I know, where the 
stalker's bag can be obtained is at G. Cording' s, 125, Regent Street. 

Clothing. — In late autumn very warm clothes are required. One 
ought to look more to their windproof than waterproof qualities. 
Lambswool-liued driving-gloves are capital things, and a so-called 
Icelander cap (knitted), covering the whole head — a great comfort. 



412 Appendix, 

Boots, of course, should be taken from England. Low ankle-boots of the 
stoutest make are the best. Bedding had better be got out West. 

Othek Articles. — A pair of stout lawn-tennis shoes with the so-called 
••pyramid" sole {not ribbed) will be found most usefuL You hardly 
get used to wear moccasins in less than a month or two, and the lawn- 
tennis shoe answers the same purpose. 

WAPITI 

A FEW remarks concerning the period when the three chief species of 
Western deer have their horns '' cleaned," and in a further degree when 
they shed them, will perhaps be not unwelcome to sportsmen intending to 
visit the Western hunting-grounds. 

Wapiti shed their horns later than the smaller deer, April being the 
usual time. Mule-deer shed about the latter half of February. I happened 
to be last February in a locality where this species had congregated in 
thousands, oflFering exceptionally good opportunity to watch the process. 
Unlike the Wapiti, who shed their antlers simultaneously, or very nearly so, 
the deer not unfrequently carry one horn much longer than the other ; and 
within a few days towards the end of the month of February I saw a number 
carrying only one horn. Whitetail, the smallest of the three deer species 
to be found West, shed about the same time as the mule-deer, though, to 
speak of my own experience, which is somewhat contrary to that of others, 
I found that they are later in cleaning than the last-meutioned kind. 
Two summers ago, about the middle of August, I happened to shoot a buck 
of each sort on one and the same day ; and while the larger one had his 
antlers perfectly clean, those of the Whitetail were still in velvet. 

Wapiti, I find, vary in different years. In 1877 and 1878 they were 
cleaned quite ten days earlier than in 1879, observations being made in one 
and the same locality in Wyoming, at an altitude of about 7000 feet. Last 
summer they were still later, though I must remark that in this instance I 
was further North, and a good deal higher in altitude. 

The shooting of the four bulls on August 13th, 1880, to which I 
referred in the text, gave me a good opportunity to arrive at some con- 
clusions respecting the reason of the difference. Favoured by the ground, 
which was, if not covered with snow, of very soft iiature, I tracked the 
four I had killed. Evidently my victims were strangers to each other, and 
had probably met by accident on the enticingly cool snow. Two bulla 
which, when I shot them, were closest to me, had come up from the 
southern slopes, where dense timber and low brushwood, the home of myriads 
upon myriads of mosquitoes and flies, covered the mountain. The rest — 
evidently belonging together — the males of which were all in " velvet," 



Appendix, 413 



had come from the North- West, had crossed the very highest part of the 
range, quite 12,000 feet in elevation, and had descended a slope some 
900 feet in height, which, if not actually a sheer precipice, was the very 
next thing to it, and which I would have sworn no living creature save a 
chamois or a mountain goat could descend, least of all an animal handi- 
capped by branching antlers of great size. 

This lot had come from their usual homes at that season of the year, a 
vast stretch of barren highland, situated on the other side of the range, 
where there were no mosquitoes or flies. Hence I came to the conclusion 
(possibly a wrong one) that those Wapiti which habitually range in forests 
where flies are bad, shed the velvet considerably sooner than others which 
are not bothered by these pests ; and. as some years and some localities are 
much more exposed to these scourges of man and beast, I fancy prolonged 
experience would establish the fact that in such years, and in such places, 
Wapiti " clean "—or, as the Western hunters call it " shake," from the 
motion of the trees against which they rub — from two to three weeks 
earlier than others. 

A few days later I had again occasion to watch Wapiti descending a slope 
as precipitous as the other one. It was a most interesting sight, and one 
certainly I never expected to see. They came down very slowly, following 
a sort of chimney-like gully. In the steepest parts they would sit back on 
their haunches, and, with their antlers also well thrown back and their 
front legs thrust forward, half slide, half edge down the amazingly steep 
declivity. In other places they would step down broadside on, while the 
last part of the descent was made in one big rush, carrying them far out 
into the level ground at the foot of the rocks. None of the men had ever 
seen a similar performance on the part of elk ; and when I showed them the 
first precipice they were so incredulous, that I took them up to where the 
tracks proved in an incontestable manner the truth of my words. 

In another respect the last season was a phenomenal one, namely, in the 
irregularity of the " whistling " time (rutting season) of Wapiti. It began 
a fortnight earlier, and lasted quite three weeks longer than usual. I shot 
my first " whistling " stag on September 4th, and my last on October 25th, 
though they were still whistling on November 2nd. In connexion with 
the shedding of horns, Wapiti, it would seem to me, make an exception to 
most other species of deer that I know, namely, that their horns are nearly 
always cast within a few yards of each other. I happened to pass last year 
through a favourite district of Wapiti in shedding time, as \ras proved by 
the extraordinary number of antlers that lay about on the barren slopes 
facing the south, frequented by them in April and May. Many of them 
were of truly gigantic proportions ; one pair, I remember, measured fouf 
inches more in length, namely, sixty-eight inches, than the biggest head 



414 Appendix, 

iny own killing. It was curious to observe how sing tilarly close the two 
separate horns always lay to each other. Of twenty-six very big pair 1 
counted, only one pair was further apart than forty or fifty yards. 

Wapiti die hard. I remember a very big old bull I once opened fire on 
at a distance of some 250 yards. He was standing looking at me broadside 
on, when he received my first two bullets. As the distance was somewhat 
great, and not seeing the slightest sign that I hit him, I gave him, while 
yet standing perfectly motionless, two more. Port, who happened to be 
with me at the time, cried " Shoot ! shoot ! Don't you see you have missed 
him r I felt sure this was not the case, for I had taken careful aim, and 
my old " trail stopper " was good for that distance. Before I had time to 
follow his advice the stag " broke together " precisely in the manner I have 
described. Wh(^n we came up to him we found that Port's big hand 
covered my four bullet-holes. No other deer that I know would act in 
this manner, but no other stag proper approaches the Wapiti in size. If 
not well hit he will carry off an enormous amount of lead. I have put as 
many as fourteen Express •500-boi-e bullets into one, and in the end only 
got him by a mere fluke. 

Some authors on the Wapiti have endowed him with trucculent vicious- 
ness, maintaining that a wounded Wapiti will charge you. Of this I never 
came across the slightest evidence. Owing to carelessness I once got a 
slight prod while I was in the act of severing the spinal cord of a beast 
at his last gasp. It was only a spasmodic movement. Respecting their 
fighting propensities among themselves, I frequently witnessed during 
whistling time battles between old bulls, waged with a deadly fury quite 
as great as mark the duels between their European brethren. Of some 
twenty odd good heads I bagged at one period, more than half were 
damaged, having from one to four tines broken off short. Later on I came 
across much fe bulls with damaged antlers — a circumstance not easy to 
explain. My own experience tends to prove that many bulls injured in 
fights die subsequently a lingering death. Of the above-mentioned twenty 
stags, six or seven showed severe wounds, one or two among them being 
hardly able to stagger along at the time. My bullet delivered them from 
further misery. 

On one occasion my trapper and I were running a band of Wapiti, num- 
bering some four or five hundred, picking out the biggest— which are 
always the best protected by a surging mass of does and smaller fry. We 
followed them for five hours, with two or three halts, over the stiffest 
ground that horses could possibly cross, when a big bull, shot too far back, 
charged another one, a fierce fight ensuing there and then between the 
two, who seemed entirely oblivious of our close presence. This " running " 
a gang, is lively sport, provided ycu have fresh horses. Up and down 
precipitous slopes, across ravines and through timber, always at a hfoid- 



Appendix, 415 

gallop, one's riding qualities are tested; and one's nerves tingle witTi life 
aad excitement, so that the risks of broken boues are set at nought. But 
there is a dark side to this exciting sport ; for not only is it hardly worthy 
of the noble game to shoot them as yon would the unwieldy and dull- 
Bpirited bison, but as you necessarily wound animals which you never can 
hope to release from their sufferings. I indulged in it only . n two occa- 
sions, and T hope never to do so again. 

It is a singular fact, that suggests many interesting explanations, that 
in Germany — the home country of our European deer — and among certain of 
the mountain tribes of Indians in North America— the two so-called canine 
teeth of the stag (growing in the upper jaw) are equally much prized. 

Among the " Crows " in Montana, fifty pair of ordinary ones used, till 
quite lately, to purchase a good pony. And in Germany I have made 
many a sportsman very happy indeed by a pair of Wapiti teeth ; my stock 
being only too soon exhausted. 

The big pair of my great stag are no longer together, I had them mounted 
as pins ; and the memory of the grand old fellow is honoured by two august 
sportsmen who graciously accepted them. 

Regarding i.t comparative weight of antlers, and of the whole stag, my 
expex-ience, both in Europe and America — i.e. with Red Deer and Wapiti — 
leads me to say that the usual proportion is about 1 : 25, as long as the 
stag is in good condition. However, after rutting-time the proportion is 
very much less ; in the isolated cases, where I have been able to arrive at 
the weights, they stood about 1 : 15. 

Of all deer, the skin of the Wapiti makes the poorest leather, though the 
hide, if shot about the end of October, can be made into a pretty rug or 
robe. It is not uninteresting to note that Lewis and .Clarke's famous 
exploring expedition in the first decade of the present century, when they 
penetrated to the upper waters of the Missouri, very nearly came to grief 
owing to the unenduring quality of the Elk hides, of which they had made 
their only boat, packing in it all their instruments and stores. The boat 
and its contents were entirely lost, and, as the explorers maintain, only on 
account of the spongy nature of the material. *' Had we used buffalo 
skins, we undoubtedly would have passed the falls of the Missouri in 
safety," remark the intrepid explorers in their narrative. Wapiti hides are 
on this account practically worthless. 

It will not be out of place if I here draw attention to the fact, that the 
problem of the preservation of the large game of Montana and Wyoming, 
now the best game districts of the country, is — aside of the general meta- 
morpliosis of wild mountain country into cattle ranges — entirely dependent 
upon one condition, the price of " pelts." As long as the price of antelope 
find Deer skins per pound remains less than fifteen cents, and Elk skins lesu 
than twelve cents, net to the hunter, there will be few killed, except foi 



41 6 Appendix, 

food. When tbe price rises above these figures, the destruction will go on 
in a greater or less ratio, in proportion thereto. 

A recent writer, in Forest avid Stream^ very truly says of the late rise 
in the prices of deer and antelope skins to twenty-five and thirty -five cents 
per pound, that the destrucl ion of those animals has been commensurate. 
For the season of 1880 the shipment of hides on the Missouri and Yellow- 
stone having been approximately 167,000, and for 1881, 143,000, repre- 
senting about seventy- five per cent, of animals actually killed. The hard 
winters of 1879-80, aud 1880-81, witli their deep snows, peculiarly favoured 
this work, as during the winter months elk, deer, and antelope band 
together in large herds, and are the more easily bagged. During the 
summer they disperse into small bands, the two former disappearing into 
the timber of the foot-hills and of the most rugged mountains. Last 
spring, elk skins, which before that had been of small value, rose to twenty- 
two and twenty-five cents, per pound ($2.50 to $5 per hide) — this price 
giving a fine profit. Last summer the deer were even followed into the high 
and most precipitous mountains, their summer home (something that had 
never been done before), ten to twelve days' travel of packs being necessary 
to get the hides to market. 

And so with the buffalo. During all seasons when their robes were good 
this work has been steadily going on, and mostly by m^n who have been 
engaged in the business for years on the southern buffalo ranges. 

As a matter of statistical information, pains have been taken to gather 
the following facts, believed to be approximately correct, in relation to the 
shipment of hides from the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers for the years 
named, and which represent from seventy to seventy-five per cent, of the 
animals killed by men engaged in that business : — 

1880. 
Yellowstone Eiver— deer and antelope ... 
MissoTiri River— deer and antelepe 

Yellowstone— buflfalo (by whites) 

„ ,, (by Indians) 

No report from the Missouri. 

J.ota>l ... ... ... ,,« f„ 

18S1. 

Yellowstone -deer , 

Yellowstone— antelope 

Missouri — deer and antelope 

Yellowstone — elk ». 

Yellowstone— buffalo (whites) 

„ „ (Indians) ... 

llisaouri— buffalo 

Total ... ^ ^ ^ ^ ... 264,200 



60,000 




107,000 






167,000 


22,700 




5,000 






27,700 


... 


194,700 


20,000 




53.000 




70,000 






143,000 


6,200 






6,200 


78,000 




15,000 




23,000 







116,000 



Appendix. 417 

In a subsequent portion of the article the writer says : — 

** It is nob probable that the price of pelts (with the decreasing annual 
supply) will again fall below a paying price to the pelt-hunter ; so that the 
sequences before chalked out in this article will just as inevitably obtain as 
that day follows night, and a few years will witness the gradual extermina- 
tion of the grandest game that ever existed on the earth." 

Let me here say a few words on a different subject, i.e. that cruel and 
certainly very unsportsmanlike habit of careless shooting where game is so 
abundant, as in the West. Only too often men will pot away at a band of 
antelopes or deer, supremely indifferent regarding the ultimate fate of those 
animals they have happened to hit, but who failed to fall at the crack of 
the rifle. Then you will hear : " I think I hit half a-doz5n, but they all 
went off, and I can't bother to make sure what has become of them." And 
the mighty hunter, whose cheek would blanch, were he to be told that he 
had done something very unsportsmanlike — indeed, something which in 
point of torture inflicted to brute creation is far worse than cutting off a 
cow's tail, consoles himself with the thought, " Well, perhaps it won't hurt 
them much." 

It is this very circumstance which makes me a strong partisan of Express 
rifles of larger bore even for the smaller species of game, such as our red- 
deer and chamois. For if hit, the wound is in nearly every case far more 
effective than that of smallbore solid balls. You instantly see that the 
game is hit, and the quantity of blood lost by the animal, if it can continue 
its flight, is infinitely greater than from those inflicted by the other species 
of aim, not only exhausting the victim much sooner, but making the 
tracking, even without a dog, comparatively easy. 

In my eyes the misery inflicted on animals by careless shooting, and 
-^^hich many sportsmen hold in very slight regard, is infinitely worse than 
a shortcon)ing for which a favourite word in their selfish vocabulary is 
always ready. What this word is those who on one occasion were so 
singularly handy with it will best know. 



MAUYAISES TEREES. 

PROrESSOE Getkie puts the chief features of the geological formations of 
the West in such plain words, that I may be pardoned if I quote a few of 
his remarks. He says : — 

* ' Granted that the solid materials out of which a mountain or table- 
land has been built were originally accumulated as sediment on the floor 
of the sea, how has this hardened sediment been fashioned into the well- 
known lineaments of the land ? The solution of this question aroused souio 

E e 



41 8 Appendix. 

years ago a keen disiussion, and has given rise to a portentous mass of 
geological literature. The combatants, as in most warfares, scientific or 
other, ranged themselves into two camps. There were the Convulsionists, 
or believers in the paramount efficacy ot subterranean movement, who, 
starting from the universally admitted proofs of upheaval, crumpling, and 
fi'acture, sought an explanation of the present inequalities of the land in 
unequal disturbance from below. On the other hand, there were the 
Erosionists, or upholders of the efficacy of superficial waste, who maintained 
that besides the elevations due to subterranean causes, mountains, valleys, 
and all the other features of a landscape have been gradually carved into their 
present shapes by the slow abrasion of the air, rain, rivers, frosts, and 
the other agents of subaerial erosion. Tlie contest, which was keen enough 
some years ago, has for a while almost ceased among us, though an occasional 
shot from younger combatants, fired with the old enthusiasm, serves to 
keep alive the memory of the campaign, 

" Having long ago attached myself to the camp of the Erosionists, though 
by no means inclined to do battle under the extreme ' quietist ' banners of 
some of its champions ... I have long been convinced, that for the proper 
discussion of the real efficacy of superficial erosion in the development of a 
terrestrial surface, the geologists of Europe have been at great disadvantage. 
The rocks in these regions have undoubtedly been subjected to so many 
changes — squeezed, crumpled, fractured, upheaved, and depressed— that the 
effects of unequal erosion upon their surface has been masked by those of 
subterranean distux'bance. The problem has thus become much more com- 
plicated than, with simpler geological structure, it would have been. Its 
solution has demanded an amount of knowledge of geological structure which 
can hardly be acquired without long and laborious training, the want of 
whicli on the part of many who have taken part in the controversy, has led 
to the calling in question or denial of facts, about the reality and meaning 
of which there should never have been any doubt at all. That, in spite of 
these obstacles, observers in this country should have been able to brush 
aside the accidental or adventitious difficulties, and to get at the real gist 
of the matter, as I am certain they have done, seems to me a lasting proof 
of their scientific prowess. 

" Now, it is unquestionably true that had the birthplace of geology lain 
on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, this controversy would never 
have arisen The efficacy of denudation, instead of evoking doubt, discus- 
sion, or denial, would have been one of the first obvious principles of the 
science, established on the most irrefragable basis of patent and most 
impressive facts. Over thousands of square miles the strata remain prac- 
tically unchanged from their orig'nal horizontal position, so that the eff"ects 
of surface erosion can at once be detected upon their flat parallel layers. The 



Appendix, 419 

countrj^ has not been under the sea for a vast succession of geological periods. 
It has not been buried, like so much of Northern Europe, and North-Eastern 
America, under a thick cover of ice-borne clays and gravels. Its level 
platforms of sandstone, shale, clay, or limestone, lie at the surface, bare to 
the wind and rain, and their lines can be followed mile after mile, as if the 
whole region were one vast geological model, to which the world should 
come to learn the fundamental laws of denudation." 

"The Mauvaises Terres," or " Bad-lands," is the expressive name of the 
strangest, and, in many respects, the most repulsive scenery in the world. 
They are tracts of irreclaimable barrenness, blasted and left for ever lifeless 
and hideous. To understand their peculiar features, it is needful to bear 
in mind that they lie on the sites of some of the old lakes already referred 
to, and that they have been carved out of flat sheets of sandstone, clay, 
marl, or limestone that accumulated on the floors of these lakes. Every- 
where, therefore, horizontal lines of stratification meet the eye, giving 
alternate stripes of buff, yellow, white, or red, with here and there a 
strange verdigris-like green. These strata extend nearly horizontally for 
hundreds of square miles. But they have been most unequally eroded. 
Here and there isolated flat-topped eminences or "buttes," as they are 
styled in the West, rise from the plain in front of a line of buff" or cliff" to a 
height of several hundred feet. On examination, each of these hills is 
found to be built up of horizontal strata, and the same beds reappear in 
lines of terraced cliff" along the margin of the Plain. A butte is only a 
remnant of the original deep mass of horizontal strata that once stretched 
far across the Plain. Its sides and the fronts of the terraced cliff's, utterly 
verdureless and bare, have been scarped into recesses and projecting 
buttresses. These have been further cut down into a labyrinth of peaks 
and columns, clefts and ravines, now strangely monumental, now un- 
conthly irregular, till the eye grows weary with the endless variety and 
novelty of the forms. Yet beneath all this chaos of outline there can be 
traced everywhere the level parallel bars of the strata. The same band of 
rock, originally one of the successive floors of the old lake, can be followed 
without bend or break from chasm to chasm, and pinnacle to pinnacle. 
Tumultuous as the surface may be, it has no relation to underground 
disturbances, for the rocks are as level and unbroken as when they were 
laid down. It owes its ruggedness entirely to erosion. 

" But there is a further feature adding to the repulsiveness of the *' Bad- 
lands." There are no springs or streams. Into the soil, parched by the 
fierce heats of a torrid summer, the moist a re of the subsoil ascends by 
capillary attraction, carrying with it the saline solutions it has extracted 
from the I'ocks, At the surface it is at once evaporated, leaving behind a 
white crust or efiaorescence, which covers the bare ground and encrusts the 

E e 2 



420 Appendix, 

pebbles strewn thereon. Vegetation wholly fails, save here and there a 
bunch of salt-weed, or a bunch of tbe ubiquitous sage-biush, the parched, 
livid-green ot which serves only to increase the desolation of the desert/' 

THE BIGHOEK 

That Bighorn rams fight among themselves during rutting-time, I 
had in my last trip, occasion to observe. I watched several such en- 
gagements ; when the rams would run at each other with amazing 
force, striking each other's horns with such violence that I heard the 
sound two or three hundred jards off with quite a stiff breeze blowing 
athwart the intervening space. Port once shot a very big ram, shortly after 
the rutting season, who had an immense cut, extending from the should^ 
to the middle of his back ; a wound undoubtedly inflicted by a rival. 
Likewise was it the good fortune of one of the men to kill, three years ago, 
an hermaphrodite Bighorn, with very singular horns. Passing, twelve 
months afterwards, near the place where he killed it, I was anxious to secure 
the head, but it was gone ; cayotes or wolverines having probably carried 
it off. According to the description given to me, the horns resembled 
those of a two or three-year-old ibex, lacking, however, the "rings'* 
peculiar to the latter's headgear. 

To speak of sizes given by English sportsmen, it would seem that many 
of the conflicting accounts would be brought to agree by taking the simple 
fact into consideration that the horns shrink, not only in girth at the base, 
but also, strange as it sounds, in length. An instance mentioned, if I am 
not mistaken, by Lord Dunraven in his '* Great Divide," of the singular 
diflierence in the measurement of the same pair of horns, some time having 
elapsed between the first and second application of the tape, led me not 
only to examine every available source of information, but also to make 
accurate measurements myself, both of which proved to me beyond doubt 
that the girth decreases considerably more than the length of the horn 
measured along the curve. Even the ibex horn, which is more solid, shrinks, 
it seems, though to a much lesser degree, as can be seen by the silver 
and gold-mounted goblets, snuffboxes, and powder-flasks wrought by. the 
expert German silversmiths of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of 
the treasured " steinbock,*' all of which will be found to have shrunk from 
their mountings ; and this in the moist climate of Europe, with a solid 
mass of horn. How much greater must the shrinkage be, therefore, of a 
horn supplied with a soft core, in a climate so dry that waggon wheels 
made of seasoned hickory fall to pieces if not frequently wetted ? 
Nothing is easier, therefore, than to explain many of the apparently con- 
flicting statemeots made bj English sportsmen, who have omitted to state 



Appendix, 42 \ 

when the horns they speak of were measured— whether at once on the 
death of the animal, or a year or two afterwards. From what I saw, I 
should not in the least doubt that a heavy pair, shot in summer, would in 
ne year decrease an inch in girth, especially if left in a dry climate. 

An American author of a recent monograph on this animal, states that 
rams emit at rutting time '* a long-drawn booming bark, not a signal of 
distress, but an amatory acclaim, an invocation of the dulcis dea amathusia 
when the mercury trembles at forty-five below zero." I have never heard 
this sound, but I am inclined to think the author intended to use not 
the word mercury, which, as everybody knows, congeals at 39° Fahr., but 
another one, say for instance gullibility. I give this contribution to Natural 
History with due reserve. 

In Mexico the Bighorn is hunted with dogs. With this form of chase 
the author I have cited seems to be better acquainted than with that of the 
Northern Rockies. The dogs, he says, used are a special breed of fleet 
animals, called galgos, or cimarroneros, in Nueva Leon, and said to be 
descendants of those powerful sleuth-hounds that are used to chase the 
wolf and the Iberian ibex in the Eastern Pyrenees. In quiet winter nights 
the cimarrdns often descend to the middle region of the sierra, but hurry 
back to the highlands at tlie first alarm ; and, taking advantage of this 
habit, the hunting-party divide their forces. At a given signal the first 
galgos are slipped, and though they may fail to overtake the fugitives, they 
will put them to hard shifts before they reach the uplands, where they have 
to run the gauntlet of the second detachment. If the dogs understand 
their business, they will co-operate and keep tlieir game together till they 
can make a simultaneous attack ; for, if the herd scatters, the first victim 
will generally prove a scapegoat for the rest. Going straight up-hill the 
cimarrdns often improve their start by dashing up a cliff" where the pursuer 
has to turn to the left or right ; but on level ground the tables are turned, 
and, once abreast of his game, the hound makes short work of it, dashing 
ahead ot the nearest good-sized sheep — often a nursing ewe — and, suddenly 
turning, flies at the throat in true wolf style and le rasga la vida, as the 
Spaniards express it — " tears out her life " — at the first grip. The galgo 
does not remove his prey, but stays on the spot and summons the hunter 
by a peculiar howl, repeated at shorter and shorter intervals if he has 
reason to fear that snow-drifts or prowling wolves will make his post 
untenable. Professional cimarrdn-hunters generally carry a meat-bag, as 
contact with the hairy coat of the deer-sheep often afflicts the human skin 
with cosquillas ("sheep-tickle"), a persistent itch that sometimes spreads 
from the hands to the chest, but, strange to say, cannot be traced to any 
visible cause. Like mange and prurigo, it is probably caused by microscopic 
parasites. 



422 Appendix, 



ANTLERS AND HEADS. 

Antlees should never be sawn off at the burr, a portion of the skull should 
always be included. As it is, of course, quite impossible to pack Wapiti 
antlers on packhorses, they must be separated by sawing through the skull- 
bone that has been left on them, thus each horn will have a piece of 
bone attached to it, which also facilitates mounting if the head is to be 
stuffed, and what is mo^t important the correct angle of skull and horns is 
preserved. It is often supposed that to have an entire head stuffed it is 
necessary to take with you the whole skull, jaw-bone, &c. This is by no 
means the case. The antlers sawn off as advised, and the heiid-skiu taken 
off well down to the chest, great care behig taken in the vicinity of the 
eyes, is all that is wanted. For preserving these bead-skins in the West, 
where the air is singulai'ly dry, nothing more is necessary than to turn them 
inside out, so that the *' snout ^' is of sack-like shape (also the ears have 
to be turned), and so let them dry. Nob a single Wapiti head-skin of mine 
was in the slightest damaged, notwithstanding that ten or eleven months 
intervened before they reached the taxidermist's hands. If they have to be 
boxed while yet damp, a liberal coating of salt and alum wiU, I am told, 
protect them till they reach Europe. 

With Bighorn heads, also very cumbersome things to pack, the mode is 
even simpler. If the whole head (and portion of the neck) is to be stuffed, 
skin the neck clear, and then sever the spinal cord at the top nearest to the 
skull, doing the pame with the lower jaw-bone. A circular incision at the 
base of skull will enable you to get out the brain. 

Two saws should be taken— one an eighteen-iuch broad-bladed, the other 
a fifteen-inch butcher's saw, the blade of which can be screwed in; a few 
spare blades being taken. 



ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS IN ENGLAND. 

Regaedino- this subject much could be written. Their singular poorness has 
been often remarked by others. None of our great public zoological museums 
are, it would seem to unprejudiced observers, at all on a par with our national 
weakness for sport. While it is perfectly true that in many English country 
mansions there are collections of game animals and beasts of prey unri- 
valled, in their speciality, by any one of the chief museums in the world — 
iu fact, at least half-a-dozen such private repositories could be named, each 
a matchless and complete collection of a large continent's quarry, the result 
of the life-long efforts of a single devotee — yet a country cousin, or foreigner 
on a visit to our metrop >lis, and desirous of examining our national zoological 



Appendix, 423 

collections, cannot help being struck by tbe startling disparity between 
these ill-arranged shows of game animals — consisting generally of very 
inferior specim.ens in a bad condition, very poorly stuffed, and crowded 
together " as if,^' as a French savant onco remarked to me, " we tried to 
pack them into the smallest possible space " — and the far-famed renown of 
the ubiquitous English sportsman, who, in the pursuit of game, traverses 
Oceans and Continents, expends riches, and braves untold dangers with a 
composure and determination u orthy of great ends. 

There would, I fancy, be pei-haps less prating from radical platforms against 
the classes from which the sportsman is usually recruited, were the public 
made a little better acquainted with those features that legitimize the 
pursuit of the I^imrod; and while this would tend to raise the standard of 
sport in the eyes of the outside world, it would also create fresh and attrac- 
tive fields for the unabating activity of that product of the British stamina- 
endowing soil — the English sportsman. 



THE TETOI:^ BASTK 

FOUB or five months after mv return to civilization, my attention was 
drawn to an article by one of the four gentlemen, members of the Hayden 
Exploration Party, who had ascended the Grand Teton in 1872. The 
account and the illustrations are rather of a sensational character. The 
party ascended the great chain from the West and not from the East, 
as I did, so of coui'se I cannot speak of the first half of their work, From 
their accounts it was comparatively easy, the difficult part commencing on 
leaving the backbone to tackle the peak itself. This portion we had in 
common, at least to judge from their graphic and minute description ; and 
it is here that the writer must allow me to differ with him. Had he 
confined himself to American mountains in his comparison of mountaineer- 
ing diifiiulties, I would not have a single word to say, for probably the 
Teton is one of the most difficult peaks in North America, at any rate in 
tbe Rocky Mountains ; but as he drew the Alps into his discussion, of which, 
as he confesses, he bad no personal acquaintance, I have to remind him that 
what he says of them is not entirely correct. Among the statements he 
makes are the following : "No steeper ascents than those made by us have 
ever distinguished the Alpine climbers; and when Whymper states that the 
ascension of one mile in two miles of latitude is prodigiotidy steep; we 
may be forgiven a little pride in the accomplishment of a mile of ascent in 
somewhat less than one mile of latitude." Considering that one of tbe 
ciimbers was a gentleman '* fresh from his home in F'.ngland, wlio knew 
little of the properties of snow and ice," the author had, perhaps, less 



424 Appendix, 

difficulty in persuading his audience of the truth of the above state- 
ment than he would have in the case of persons conversant with moun- 
tains. The expedition seemed to partake of the exceptional in the eyes 
of the writer, for even a surgeon had "considerately accompanied us to 
the base of the ridge, provided with instruments and bandages in case of 
accidents," Considering that " on the top of an adjacent pinnacle, but 
little lower than the one we occupied," they found signs of human 
architecture of a rude form, the words of the writer, "others might 
come after us, but to be the first where hundreds had failed was no 
braggart boast," are perhaps a little inconsistent, and on a par with the 
opinion he expresses that the ascent is more difficult than that of the 
ilatterhorn. 

The scenery on the range itself is of savage grandeur, and the peculiar 
clearness of the air makes this all the more apparent, for everything is 
thrown out far more distinctly than in the mellower, and unquestionablj' 
more pict'iresque light of the Alps. Even from the backbone of the chain 
a vast sweep of country is visible, and from the much higher altitude I 
gained on the peak the view was very fine; towards the West it is of 
melancholy desolateness, for you overlook the barren table-lands of Idaho, 
and vast stretches of mauvaises terres. Towards the North and East the 
view is far grander, and entirely of Alpine character. Beginning with the 
Yellowstone country, jou see befoieyon the Great Divide for a length of 
at least 200 miles, and it was pleasant to note the different peaks in the 
distant range I had ascended. 

There are some small glaciers on the Teton ; the few remaining refiiges 
for tliese formations in the Central or Northern Rocky Mountains. I may 
still refer mountaineers to an interesting account of Alpine work in the 
Eocky Mountains of Wyoming and Idaho, by Mr. James Eccles, in No. 65 
of the Alpine Journal. 

1 here is a good deal of mystery about the locality of the Teton Basiu. 
According to some accounts, it is on the Western slopes of the i-ange, and 
is not the same place as Jackson's Hole, this supposition being shared by 
several map-makers. In Professor Hayden's last map of that region the 
name Teton Basin does not occur at all. The testimony of two trappers, 
who have known the locality for the last thirty or forty yeai^s, proves the 
terms to be synonymous, and each to refer to the place located on the 
Eastern slopes. 

THE BEAVER 

The beaver's castoreum, i.e. the contents of his musk -bag, was once, as 
everybody knows, a very valuable drug. Now it is no longer used by the 



Appendix, 425 



druggist and apothecary, but the decline is comparatively of very recent 
date. Von Tschudi, the editor of Winkell's famous Sporting Chronic, 
mentions that as late as 1852 the castoreum of a European beaver fetched 
as much as 509 Rhenish florins (50Z.). Singular to say, no Western 
trappers I had occasion to interrogate regarding the market value of 
castoreum knew anything about it, though many of them had trapped for 
thirty or forty year's. It would appear that from Alaska 248 lbs. of 
castoreum were exported to Europe in 1852, 

Not only to the naturalist, but also to the historian, does the beaver 
afford study. For two centuries or more the pelt of this animal was an 
important article in our mercantile annals, our upper classes wearing it 
exclusively for about 200 years. In Charles II.'s reign Parliament 
prohibited the use of any other material but beaver skins for hat manu- 
facture. It was also frequently exercised in passing statutes on behalf of 
beaver fur and the protection of its trade. So, for instance, do I find in 
the Calendar for that year, that Sir David Cunningham received, a.d. 1638, 
new leases for twenty-one years of a duty of t'.velvepeuce, payable to his 
Majesty upon every beaver hat and cap made by the Company of Beaver 
Makers of London, with a moiety of the benefit of seizures of all foreign 
beaver hats imported. For this a yearly rent of 500?. was paid. Prices of 
beaver fur have kept up with the ruling fashions of the day. Thus, 200 
years ago, during the Dutch occupation of New Amsterdam, beaver skins 
were worth about 10^. a-piece (a very high price), and were used in lieu of 
currency. In 1820, and again in 1834, they were worth on the trapping 
ground from 2,1. to Zl. ; while twenty or twenty-five years ago a good skin 
fetched but 8*., at which rate the sales of the Hudson Bay Company in 
1854-5-6 amounted, iti would appear, in London alone to 627,655 skins. 



426 Appendix^ 



THE CATTLE EANCHE BUSmESS. 

ACCORDINO- to a statement I append, made upon the spot, and submitted 
to the critical examination of several of the most reliable ranehemen I came 
across, it appears that a man starting with a capital of 10,000^. will, if he 
does not touch either capital or interest for three years, at the end of that 
period be the richer by 8800Z. This, with moderate luck and careful 
handling. 

Estimate pos Cattle-eaising in Wyoming oe Montana Teeei- 
TOEiES. Capital invested, 10,000Z., as follows :— 

A herd of 2000 good Oregon or Utah cows, 75 per cent. £ «. & & £ 

of which, if carefully selected, wiih calves, cost; in 

1879, delivered at ranche 3 10 ... 7000 

1000 yearlings ... 2 ... 2000 

35 good American bulls, Shorthorn or Hereford ...10 0... 350 

Cost of building log ranche and corrall — ... 200 

Necessaries for ranche: 50 ponies at 61. saddlery and 
Taranding iron and waggon — ... 450 ...10,000 

Your stock-book would show at end of first year :— 
The 1500 calves bought with the cows, of which 750 

heifers and 750 steer calves would now be worth as 

yearlings 2 ... 3000 

The 1000 yearlings would now be two-year-olds, worth 

3 Z., or IZ. more than at first — ...1000... 4O0O 

Expenses : ranche expenses, provisions for four men 

per annum — ... 300 

Wages of three cow-boys, $35 per month=7Z, per 

month = 8 4Z. per annum — ... 252 

Other incidental charges and taxes — ... 148 

Losses : usually fully covered by 6 per cent, on capital 

in cattle — ... 470 ... 1170 

Peofits at end of MEST year ... — — 2830 

Your stock-book at end of second year would show :— 
The 750 heifer calves, now two-year-olds, would be 

worth 2Z. 15s,, or 15s. more — ... 560 

The 750 steer calves, now two-year-olds, would now be 

worth 3Z., or IZ. more — ... 750 

The 1000 yearlings, now three years old, would be 

worth 3Z. 10s., or 10s. more — ... 600 

The 2000 cows had calves the first year ; take 75 per 

cent., would give 1500 calves, now yearlings, worth... 2 ... 3000 ... 4 
Eanche expenses, increased by 200Z. ; additional man's 

hire, losses above the first 5 per cent,, increased by 

100Z.{300Z.), added to 1170Z — ... — ... 1470 

Peofits at end of second year 3349 



Appendix. 427 



Your stock-Tjook at end of third year would show : — 
The 750 heifer calves, now three years old, would be 

worth (increased) 15s. — ... 660 

The 750 steer calves, now three years old, would be 

worth (increased) \l — ... 750 

The 1000 yearlings, of which 500 heifers would have 375 

two-year calves , 2 0.,. 750 

500 steers, no increase. 

The 2000 cows had calves second year, 76 per cent. 

= 1500, worth 2 ... 30OO 

The first 1500 calves, now two-year-olds (750 heifers), 

worth 2Z. 15s. (2060Z.) ; 750 steers, worth "61. (2250/.) ... — ... 4310 
The first 750 heifer calves, now three-year-olds, had 

calves (now yearlings) 560 at 2 ... 1120 ...10,490 

Eanche expenses, increased by 300Z. (purchase of bulls, 

horses, and additional men's hire). 

Losses above the fii'st 6 per cent., increased by 200Z. 

(500Z.), added to WlOl — ... — ... 1670 

Peofits at the end of THiKD year 8820 

One or two items in my statement require a word of explanation. It 
will be seen that — at starting— I counted three cowboys, which, if the 
master is competent and understands his business, is ample. If he is 
not, and is only recently out from England, it is absolutely necessary for 
him to have, at least for the first year or two, a foreman. You can get 
capital men of this class, reliable and of long experience, for about $75 to 
$100 per month (180Z. to 240L per annum), and in no case would I advise 
men to engage in the business without first acquiring some of the most 
fundamental piinciples and details. This can be very easily dom by a visit 
of two or three months to one of the outlying ranches, where the rough 
sides of life are best seen. Personal experience is very essential out West. 
Gross exaggeration on every subject is very generally theTule. Hear and 
see for yourself, is about the best advice that can be given to the immi- 
grant. In a country where human fortune fluctuates so strangely, and 
where men of all classes, grades, and character, are thrown together — it is 
doubly incumbent upon the str mger to keep his eyes and ears skinned — in 
fact, to believe but what he himself sees. 

As I have before pointed out, the profits of the business are only then 
great when sufficient capital is invested to " fill the corners." Men in a 
small way cannot expect to make more than fifteen or twenty per cent. 
No peison who takes to ranching, solely as a money-making speculation, 
should think of starting in it with less than 1500 or 2000 head. Good 
judges maintain that the real profits come in only when you have 5000 or 
6000 head to start on. The larger the herd, the less will be the cost per 
head of running the concern. 

Wyoming and Montatm, being further north than Colorado, have more snow 
in winter, notwithstanding that the summers and autumns are very similar 
in their delightful and invigorating effects. Snow, however, as I have clearly 
said, in most Western regions is very unlike our European commodity. 



428 Appendix. 

Great extremes are also common. A cold spell will for days take tlio 
thermometer down to 30° Fahr., while the following week fine sunny wea- 
ther will set in, which continues for a mouth at a tisne. Often have I ridden 
about coatless on a December or January day. The winds in these portions 
of the West are at times extraordinarily high. But^ as I have stated, they 
are the salvation of the country ; but for them, the snow would remain on the 
ground, and not one single head of cattle be able to survive even a moderate 
winter. But at the same time, next to water, high blaffs, locks, or mountain 
ranges, with the countless little ravines and gorges peculiar to the Rocky 
Mountain formation, are quite indispensable when selecting your range, for 
there alone can cattle find shelter from the fury of the elements. On the 
approach of one of these winter storms you will see them flock from con- 
siderable distances, fifteen or twenty miles, to these sheltering nooks. 

Oattle-raising on the free public lands of the Western Territories is 
attracting general attention just now in the United States. New York, 
Boston, and all the great cities on the Atlantic, are naturally much 
interested in the raising of an improved stock for the European markets. 
Several books have appeared quite recently on this subject, and the maga- 
zines are full of papers picturing the delightful life and sure way of 
*' trebling your capital in three years." The great fault an EPiglishman 
has to find with all these accounts is their more or less exaggerated descrip- 
tions. When speaking of the profits, they are all more or less unreliable. 
Thus, for instance, does the author of " Cattle Ranches in Colorado " give 
a very considerably over-estimated account of the profits that await the 
emigrant. According to him, a herd of 4000 cows and eighty Hereford 
bulls, costing |76,0G0, will, at the end of three years, be worth $233,800 
How this happy result is to be achieved is detailed at great length in a 
very plausible and taking manner, very apt " to fetch " even the coolest 
reader, "who happens to be ignorant on the subject. 

Another writer in a book on Colorado, just published, gets entirely lost 
amongst the "000" of profits. According to him, $72,000 invested in 
4000 cows would in seven years swell to $730,952, the profits of the last 
year alone amounting to $254,792. 

Unlike many of our European crafts, however, where long training and 
the experience of j'ears precede the actual start, the majority of persons 
engaged in stock-raising have had no previous acquaintance whatever with 
its working details ; and hence the perplexity consequent on an over- 
abundance of *' good " advice, exaggerated accounts of profits, and the ease 
with which success is to be compassed, proves, as I often have had occasion 
to remai'k, a serious stumbling-block for new comers. 

Locusts, an ever-threatening danger to the future farmers in Wyoming 
and Montana — for both Territories belong to what the Government Ento • 
mological Commission define as the permanent or native breeding-ground. 



Appendix. 429 



where the species is always found — are for the cattlemen of those regions 
a source of very little anxietj'. 

The question of improving the breeds of Western cattle is receiving every 
year more attention. When Mr. L. F.Allen, President of New York State 
Agricultural Society, says, "The Americans (perhaps of all people so 
intelligent and active in tlioir agricultural pursuits), have been the least 
enterprising in irapi'oving their breeds of cattle," this can hardly, with 
justice, be extended to trans-Missourian regions, where the whole business 
of raising cattle is of the most recent origin. No doubt the next ten years 
will see a very vast improvement in this matter. 

While " prospecting " for a range or learning the details of the business, 
I would recommend the concealment as much as possible of one's object. 
Sight-seeing or '-'gunning " covers retreat in that respect. At many of the 
ranches the owners are not present ; but this is no disadvantage, as much 
more can be frequently gleaned from the servant than from the master, 
who, if he does understand the business, is often of a suspicious cast, and 
does anything but tell the truth. It was from the months of the 
cowboys — mostly a genial, open-handed set of fellows, the best of 
company, and the best of story-tellers — that I learnt much of the details of 
the business. This, however, can only be attained if the stranger (I am 
speaking here to Englishmen) is willing to treat them as they want to be 
treated, which to a msn who has no false pride about him, and the desire 
to give no ofience, is the easiest of tasks. In four cases out of five they 
represent not only the hands, but also the head of the concern. The owner 
or " bosS)" in not a few cases, can perhaps hardly tell the difference between 
an Oregon and a Texas tow ; he is often hundreds of miles away, following 
his regular occupation as hotel-keeper, doctor, or banker, in towns and 
cities, visiting his i*anche for a week once a year ; and many of the ranges 
I passed had never been seen by the owner of the cattle that grazed ovt-r it. 
It was looked up, located, and the ranche building erected by the foreman 
and his -cowboys. 

It is needless to point out what grave responsibilities are assumed by an 
author writing on a country as a field for emigration. Even with the 
most uninterested motives he is apt, by giving colour to one feature and 
passing over another, to mislead. In the foregoing notes and text I have 
been at pains to state all the pros and contras of the rough ranche business 
as fairly as I possibly could. What I have written appeared originally in 
the Field (January 31st and March 6th, 1880), and elicited many replies 
of which I propose to add one letter, published in the Field February 7th, 
1880, as it puts the whole case into a nutshell. 

*'SiE,— I have read with interest the paper in your last issue by Mr. 
Baillie-Grohman on the cattle ranches of Wyoming, and quite agree with 



430 Appendix, 

him, that before any person determines upon entering into cattle-raising 
on the frontiers in America he should have personal and practical experience. 
'*Many of the publications upon the subject are misleading and unreliable, 
as I have found from inquiries which I was induced to make in. consequencQ 
of my son's determining to go into the business. Having made pre- 
liminary arrangements, I wrote to a friend in the State asking his advice, 
and, as it may interest some of your readers who feel inclined to go, I 
append his reply. A. 

" 'As to your inquiry about purchasing land, my opinion is that well-selected 
prairie-land in any of our promising Western counties cannot fail to prove 
a fairly profitable purchase on the capital invested, even if the land be left 
untouched, simply paying the State taxes thereon, for, at the rate the 
public lands are being taken up by settlers and purchased by speculators, 
and given away by Government as subsidies to railroads and other objects, 
not many years will elapse before no cheap lands worth having can be had ; 
hence held, they must before many years bring a handsome profit. You 
will see that no land can be ovAmed by non-residents that are so safe as 
prairie-land. Timber-land is robbed, mining-land is worked, but a virgin 
prairie cannot be stolen, burned, or injured— hence is the safest, if not 
occu[;ied. The best advice I can offer in the more important step contem- 
plated by you in reference to your son's engaging in cattle-raising on the 
frontier is to come and see for yourself. You must not believe any of the 
glittering generalities which you read in the various published accounts. 
Most of them are put forward from interested motives. I feel that it is 
too serious a matter for me to say one word which would induce you to 
send your son here, the result of which might be the reverse of what you 
anticipate. I have never advised any one to leave England and come here. 
There are some grave reasons why I could not do so, chief of which is the 
almost impossible conversion of an Englishman into an American. I came 
here, as you know, from England when I was ten years old, and have been 
educated, trained, and fully Americanized. The great diffieulty in the way 
of success to an Englishman in America is that he remains an Englishman. 
Farming and stock-raising cannot be done by proxy. The old adage of 
Franklin is so truthful when applied to this country, that it must not be 
overlooked, viz : — 

He who by the plough, would thrive 
Must either hold himself or drive. 

'*' We have no gentlemen farmers here. Our most prosperous farmers are 
out at work with their men early and late ; never say * Go and do,' but 
* Come, let us do this.* 

" ' Stock-raising on the frontiers, such as you contemplate for your son, 
involves pluck, physical endurance, hardships, exposures, a frontier life 



Appoddix, 431 

among men of the roughest, hardest character, whose ver^' calling is one of 
danger, making them reckless of life, both their own and others'; when 
on duty, isolated, living on the Plains away from se'\tlements, watching 
their stock from bandits and Indians. When they come into town, like 
sailors from a long voyage, tiieir earnings go like water ; only life is often 
taken in their debauchery, for on the frontier it is a threat and a shot — 
often the shot first, and so ne poor wretch passes into eternity. Nothing 
is done about it ; a frontier country makes its own laws, and * Judge 
Lynch ' is the only tribunal to hold them in check. 

'"I say this, and do not overstate it; because you should know exactly what 
herding cattle on the frontier means. The day following the receipt of your 
letter I met a friend, wlio had been in Kansas buying up some seven- 
eighth pure blood shorthorns for a relative in Chicago, and had also been 
down to Fort Worth, on the Santa Fd Eailvvay, to complete a purchase of 
5000 acres, where he is going to raise cattle and sheep. He is an American, 
and thoroughly up in all questions of cattle herding, having been in every 
State and Territory of the Union, and his opinion is reliable. He confirms 
all 1 have written, and says that a man to have an even chance with 
othei's must be possessed of experience and reckless bravery, and be a 
frontiersman, while he would need have the moral courage to resist a 
thousand temptations of a frontier cattle-town; and, as an instance, a little 
town he went to had only eight places of legitimate business, and forty. 
three places for gambling, drinking, and kindred vices; and I am afraid 
this description applies generally to the great cattle-raising section of the 
country. 

'" There are many places nearer settlements where the business of stock- 
raising or mixed farming can be carried on by experienced persons with 
success, and there can be, I think, no doubt there is a great future for this 
country, and that any person with a moderate amount of capital, who can 
adapt himself to the American customs and ideas, is bound to succeed if he 
is industrious and frugal. 

"'Again I say, come and see for yourself. The journey to New York is 
not worth a consideration, and when you arrive there write or telegraph ; 
but if yoQ come on to us without doing either, you will find us, as Western 
people say, with ' Our latch-string on the outside always.' ' " 

I have given this letter in full, and though some of the points are, to 
my idea, a little overdrawn, there is yet a great deal of truth about it. 
The recJcle-ss bravery might be toned down to &firm will; and the thousand 
temptations of a frontier cattle-toivn have to be reduced to three, the most 
prominent being the vilest of whiskey, while the tvi'o others, gambling and 
worse, are of a similarly wretchedly poor description, and could hardly 
be called temptations for the class of men who rre likely to be guided 
by these Notes. 



LIST OF SOME AUTHORS ON THE WEST 
CONSULTED BY THE WRITEE. 



Audubon, 7 works. 
Bachraann, 3 works. 
Baird, P. S., 7 works. 
Barker, Ch. 
Bartlett, J. R. 
Batty, H. 
Beach, W. W. 
Beadle, J. 

Berkeley, Hon. C. G. F. 
Black, Capt. 
Black more. 
Bonaparte, Prince C. L. 



Brack enridge. 
Bradley, R. T, 
Bradbury. 
Brown, Robert. 
Campion, J. S. 



Catlin, G., 5 works, 

Caton, J. D. 

Cox, Ross. 

Custer, G. A. 

De Lafrenaye, 

D'Obigny. 

De Vere. 

Doane, Lieut. 

Duden, G. 

Dunraven, Earl of, 

Elwyn. 

Fleming, G, 

Fosset. 

Franklin, S. C. 

Fremont, J. C, 4 works, 

Garfielde. 

Gil more, P. 

Goodman. 

Haliburton, T. C. 

Hall, W. 

Harlan. 

Hind. 



Hittel, J. S. 

Kenney. 

King, Clarence, 3 works. 

James, Ed. 

Jones, W. A. 

Long, Major. 

McKenney. 

Mallery, Garrick, 2 works. 

Maxey, R. 2 works. 

Morgan, L. H. 

Morse, Dr. 

Murray, Hon. C. A. 

Newbouse, J. 

Nicollet. 

Parker. 

Pickering. 

Poeppig. 

Powell, J. W., 9 works. 

Red field, H. V. 

Richardson, A. D. 

Richardson, H. 

Richardson, J. 

Iiowan, J. J. 

Ross. 

Say. 

Schoolcraft, H. R., 12 workfc 

Southesk, Earl of. 

Stansbury, H, 

Strahorn. 

Tanner, S. 

Townsend, J. K. 

Up de Graff. 

Vere, Dr. M. Scheie De. 

Volney. 

Warden. 

Wheeler. 

Whetham, BoddanJo 

Whittaker, F. 

Wied, Prince of. 

Wilkes, C. J. 

Wyeth, Capt. 



INDEX. 



Absence of nobs and snobs, 30. 

Advice to Englisli settlers, 322. 

Air of the West — its qualities, 3. 

Antelope, tasteless venison, 4. 

Appetite, glorious, 61. 

Appetite, sound, 47. 

Appetite, veteran, 48. 

Application of the Beaver's hydro- 
statics, 240. 

Arrangement in strings, 367. 

Arrival my, at Settlement, 376. 

Arrappahoes the, reported on the 
war-path, 272. 

Arrappahoe the, and his squaw, 
273. 

Audubon, 407. 

Authors on the West, 432. 

Baby the, giving me an impres- 
sion, 365. 

Bad-land — its aspect, 155. 

Bad Medicine the, 42. 

Baking, 56. 

Baldfaced-Hattie, 99. 

Baldfaced-Hattie — bow she was rope 
broke, 99. 

Beans, the pot of, 190. 

Beans is pison, 192. 

Bear chase, a, 184. 

Bearclaw Joe, his get-np, 13. 

Beauty of outline in antlers, 136. 

Beaver, the, 233. 

Beaver inilapuce of, upon landscape, 
259. 

Beaver pelt, prices of, 252. 

Beaver an historical animal, 425. 



Beaver work, 242. 

Beaver town, my night at a, 256. 

Beaver, the traits of, 239. 

Beaver medicine, 250. 

Beaver, trapping of, 250. 

Beaver timber, 242. 

Beaver, the teeth of, 241. 

Beaver, the instinct of, 235. 

Beaver dam and bank, 233. 

Beaver, what trees are gnawed by, 

247. 
Beaver, the castoreum of, 424. 
Beds, how to make them, 408. 
Beds, making of, 63. 
Beds, sharing, 64. 
Bedfellow troubles, 64. 
Bedmaking under difficulties, 183. 
Bibleback, 90. 
Bighorn, the, 160. 
Bighorn, stalk of the largest, 107. 
Bighorn, my largest head, 167. 
Bighorn fighting, 420. 
Bighorn, its coat, 166. 
Bighorn hunting in Mexico, 421. 
Bighorn, the scab of the, 178. 
Bighorn rutting, 164, 
Bighorn, horns of the, 161. 
Big Wind River Mountains, 123. 
Big Wind River, 50. 
Bite of the skunk, 109, 110, 401. 
Black Coal, 272, 278. 
Blue-winged teal, 80. 
Bone carpenter, Henry's dream of, 

47. 
Boreas finds a camping place, 53. 
Boreas's character, 95. 

r f 



434 



Index, 



Boreas's bump of locality, 96. 

Boreas, trading for hiin, 89. 

Boreas's dislike of grizzlies, 97. 

Borrow to, trouble, 187. 

Boss's tbe, thundering jump, 107. 

Boy stalker, the, 139. 

Boy sentry, the, 377. 

Bi'auds of cattle, 359. 

Bridge, the |700, 288. 

Brill at- Savarin's story, 203. 

Bucking, 100. 

Bucked off, getting, 100. 

Bags, 212, 214. 

Building your ranche, 361, 

Burning children, 41. 

Camp bucket, 411. 

Camps, different sorts of, 73. 

Camp duties, 62. 

Camp, naming of, 69. 

Camp, return to, 173. 

Camp, telescoping of, 74. 

Canyons of the Colorado River, 297. 

Careless shooting, 417. 

Cartridges, 410. 

< astoreuni, 424. 

Cattle brands, 3.59. 

CatDie business, origin of, 324. 

Cattle business, profits of, 426. 

Cattle business, letter on, 429. 

Catde business, unreliable accounts 

of, 428. 
Cattle, choice of, 346. 
Cattle, cutting-out, 343. 
Cattle, getting your, 346. 
Cattle, number of, in the U.S., 321, 

325. 
Cattle plague, 334. 
Cattle-raising, profits of, 329. 
Cattle-raising, losses, 338. 
Cattle-raising attracting attention, 

348. 
Cattle-ranehe, the first, in Coloriido, 

353. 
Cattle, stampeding of, 358. 
Cellar fort, the, 378. 
Charm of trapper travelling, 62, 

55. 
Choice of cattle, 346. 
Cibies, their aspect, 5. 



Civilization, my return to, 289, 290, 
Cleanliness of Western men, 381. 
Cliuibing order, light, 113. 
Climate of Wyoming, 409. 
Climate of the uplands, 198, 
Cliti' swallow, the, 312. 
Clothing, 411. 
Cold mutton comfort, 27, 
Cold -.nap, 131. 
Cold m 1880, 34. 
Colorado River, the, 296. 
Colorado, rapid growth of, 354. 
Connexion of Nature's works, 134, 
Cooking, 56, 60. 
Coroner's, the, good story, 370. 
Cpureurs de bois, names given by, 72, 
Cowboys at work, 341. 
Cowboys, independence of, 363. 
Cowboys, two classes of, 344 
Crossing rivers, 42, 44. 
Crossing the Wind River (Indians), 
273. 

Dangees threatening cattle-raising, 

334. 
Dawn in the West, 131. 
Deadly instruments, three, 216. 
Dead man's boots, playing for, 383. 
Dcadman's Claim, 21. 
Death of the trapper, 15, 
Debut, my, 147. 
Desperado, 29. 
Destruction of game, 416. 
Diphtheria, 41. 

Discovery of Sheepeaters, 177. 
Disvobulations, 75. 
Doctrines of Western morality, 29. 
Dressing-room, sitting down the 

187. 
Dressing, story of, 47. 
Drop, getting the, 27. 
Dry Camps, 38. 
Dry stores, 54. 
Dug-out, Ufe in a, 261. 
Dunraven's, Lord, white collar ctvili- 

zation, 295. 
Dunraven, Lord, opinion of the 

Wind River Country, 400, 
Dust, bones, and flesh, 293. 
Dutch Cent, 386. 



Index. 



435 



Ea&Ie of Lewis and ClarKe, 78. 
Eaten too much dinner, 88. 
Edd, 18. 

English faces, seeing again, 291. 
English settlers, difficulties of, 363. 
Ethics of the West, 20. 
Evenings in trapper camps, 02. 
Experimentalizing of the Western 

man, 22. 
Expedition over to the Colorado, 

302. 
Exploration, previous, 51, 396. 
Express bullets, 411. 

Fayoueite playground, my, 154, 

Fill your boots, 195. 

Finding of water, 36. 

Fires on the Plains, 36. 

Fire driving us out, 223. 

First dinner, 50. 

First impressions, 365. 

Fish, how to carry them, 218. 

Fish, where I saw most, 220. 

Fish-in- Bed Camp, 71. 

Fishing, my, 215. 

Fishing iu'the Rockies, 211, 214. 

Fhiming Gorge, 304, 

Forests, in dense, 2 )1. 

Forked lightnins". untangling, 125. 

Fort Washakie, 49, 276, 286. 

Founding a home, 394. 

Four-bull-Camp hanger, 121. 

Four bulls, the, 115. 

Four Wapiti, the, 115, 

Fremont's PeaU, 196. 

French Louy's skunk, 110. 

Frontier settlements, origin of, 374. 

Fur Company voyageurs, 15. 

Game, preservation of, 415. 
Game country, wonderful, 149. 
Game, unsophisticated, 151. 
Gang of moving Wapiti, 139, 141, 

145. 
Getting up names, 13. 
Getting your cattle, 346. 
Geikie, Professor, 417. 
Geikie, Professor, description of 

bud -lands, 157. 
General Sheridan,, 31, 



Geological speculations, 318. 

Glorious appetite, 61. 

Go ! And 1 went, 280. 

Going to bed, 63. 

Going straight on Meat, 20. 

Gold, walking on, 197. 

Gold pan, the, 197. 

Good stories, life of, 369. 

G-ood stories, where one hears them, 

369. 
Government exploration party, 209. 
Grace, a strange, 385. 
Grand Canyon, 315. 
Grazing land, 336. 
Great gun, the, and small bov, 141, 

377. 
Grizzly, close encounter with a, 220. 

Habitations in the Lower Can- 
yons, 3L7. 

Half-breed trappers, 257. 

Headwaters of three great streams, 
195. 

Head of the great stag, 122. 

Heap, heap, 268. 

Henry's humour, 47, 59. 

Henry, 18. 

Henry, unadminng, 211. 

History of the Colorado explora- 
tions, 297. 

Hold-all, the, 65. 

Home, 393. 

Hoosier, poisoning, 60. 

Horsebreaking, profession of, 100. 

Horseshoe Canyon, 308. 

Horns of the Bighorn, 161. 

Hovey, Rev. H., 40i. 

Humour of Henry, 19. 

Humour of the West, 368. 

Hydrographical point of interest) 
196. 

Ilifp, Mr., 349. 

Indians and beavei', 253, 255. 

Indians, curiosity of, 270. 

Indian languages, 282. 

Indian love of the beaver, 237. 

Indian no lost, Indian here, wig 

wam lost, 203. 
Indian panic, an, 377. 

2 



436 



Index, 



Indian philosophy, 271. 
ludian reservations, 276. 
Indians, the Slieepeater, 176. 
Indians, stoical, 270. 
Indian, the Soshoue, 266. 
Indian trails, 183. 
Indians trying my Express, 270. 
Indians and travellers, 400. 
Inspiring sight of big stag, 121. 
Interview, a ludicrous, 19, 
Iron store, 131. 
It wiU ket-^p, 367. 

Jackson's Hole, romance of. 205. 
Jackson's Hole, wintering in, 222. 
Janeway, Dr., on the skunk, 404. 
Jennie's Lake, 217. 
Jerusalem Overtaker, the, 382. 
Jones, Capt., the explorer, 399. 

Kate, 103. 

Kitchen pony, the, 202. 

Lady of the Eocky Mountains, 367. 
Lakes on the Wind River Chain, 77. 
Lake scenery, 79. 
Languages of the North American 

Indians, 282. 
Landseer's sketches, 136. 
Land tenure and laws in the United 

States, 331. 
Laramie Peak country, 148. 
Lawn tennis shoes, 412. 
Leading subject, a, 385. 
Le Mars Colony, the, 321. 
Life in a dug-out, 261. 
Light-pack camps, 73. 
Lightness of the air, 114. 
Loafer Dick's death, 391. 
Losing oneself in forests, 203. 
Losses in cattle-raising, 338. 

Making- bed, 63. 
Market hunters' home, 143. 
Market hunters, a family of, 141. 
Main Divide snowstorm, 183. 
Mauvaises terres, 42, 50, 155, 175, 

194, 417. 
Mavrick, 360. 
Measuring horns, 174. 



Meat, gring straight on, 20. 

Mishaps to the hold-all, 68. 

Misunderstanding, my, with Black 
Coal, 279. 

Misinterpretation of good inten- 
tions, 281. 

Monarch of the Divide, death of, 
132. 

Moonlight ramble, a, 225. 

Moonlight stalking, 157. 

Mosquitoes, 48. 

Mountain lion, wail of, 83. 

My first stalk, 150. 

Names, corruption of, 72. 

Names, getting up of, 13. 

Naming camp; 69. 

Newberry, Prof., 318. 

Newland, 144. 

Newness of the West, 155. 

Night-camping, 131. 

Night-scene, a, in the Colorado 

canyons, 312. 
Nobs and snobs, their absence, 30. 
Notabilia venatoris, 135. 
November, 1880, great cold in, 273. 

Old Christmas, 19. 
Old John, 104. 

Origin of the cattle business, 324. 
Outfit for sportsmen, 410. 
"Outfit," the Western use of that 
word, 1. 

Packing horses, 45. 

Pelt prices, influence of, 416. 

Pet skunk, 110. 

Pioneer settlements, origin of, 374 

Pitcairn Islanders, 291. 

Plains fires, 86. 

Plains, the, as grazing land, 336. 

Plains waggon, 39. 

Poker, game of, 388. 

Poisoning <Volves, 268. 

Poisoning hoosier, 60. 

Port, his youth, 16. 

Port, his humour, 18. 

Post-office regulations, 289. 

Pot, the, of beans, 190. 

Potamology, peculiarities of, 196. 



Index. 



437 



Powell's Major, Exploration of the 

Colorado, 297, 308. 
Preservation of game, 415. 
Preparing heads, 422. 
Pre-empting land, 332. 
Profits of cattle business, 329. 
Putting out fires by counterburn- 

ing, 37. 
Purgatorial wavework, 194. 

Rabies mephitica, 402. 
Eaising cattle on free land, 327. 
Eamble, a, on the Divide, 76. 
Rattlesnake Hills, 104. 
Rattlesnakes, their rattle, 105. 
Reback-action of water, 5S. 
Reservations of Indians, 276. 
Retrospective glances, 293. 
Return to civilization, 289, 290. 
Return to camp, 84. 
Revolver, 411. 
Reynold Capt., 399. 
Ridgepole of North America, 182. 
Riding over to the dead stag, 133. 
Riding on trail, 355. 
Rifles, 410. 

Rifle the, always with you, 226. 
Rifle, anxiety for the, 106. 
Rifles, different names of, 144. 
Rocky Mountain lady, 61. 
Ropebreaking of a horse, 99. 
Round-up, the, 339. 
Riicksack, 411. 
Ruskin of the chase, 134. 

Saleeatus, 56. 

Saratoga, the, 66. 

Scab on bighorn, 178. 

Scarcity of game. 45. 

Scenery in daylight, 228. 

Schloss in Tyrol, 122. 

Secrets of beaver medicine, 251. 

Secundum, 267. 

Sharing beds, 64. 

Sheepeater Indians, l76. 

Shipping beeves, 343. 

Shoot ng of my first wapiti, 137. 

Shot at the big stag, 129. 

Sierra Soshone, 50. 



Silence in the canyons of th*- 

Colorado, 310. 
Skunk, 401. 
Skunks, their peculiarities, 108, 109 

110. 
Snowstorms on the Plains, 337. 
Snowstorm, a, is upon us, 185. 
Soap, how not to make, 199. 
Speaking wapiti, a, 138. 
Sportsmen, outfit for, 410. 
Squatter's, the right, 332. 
Shirley Basin, 41. 
Shooting stories, 25, 26, 
Sierra Soshone, 123. 
Sleigh ride, a cold, 286. 
Snowstorm, early, 119. 
Soshone Mountains, 397. 
Soshone Indians, 266. 
Soshon^ reservation, the, 277. 
Stag, the great, 123. 
Staglore, 134. 

Stalking at moonlight, 151. 
Stalker's bag, 411. 
Stalking of four wapiti, 115. 
Stampeding of cattle, 358. 
Stare, an uncomforiable, 169. 
Start, a bad, 7. 

Starting for wapiti hunt, 112, 114. 
Stock-raising business, the, 320. 
Strange old customs, 135. 
Streams, running dry, 35. 
Strychnine, use of, 268. 
Sunset, 80. 

Ta-kinq- root, 200. 

Telescoping camp, 74. 

Tenderfoot, his difficulties, 12. 

Teton, the great, 210. 

Teton, the ascent of, 423. 

Teton, the partial ascent of, 223, 424. 

Teton basin, 205, 423. 

Teton basin, locality of, 207. 

Teton basin, romance of, 205. 

Texan and Torkshireman, 392. 

Thanksgiving-day dinner, 379. 

Thunderstorm, 257. 

Time, lost reckoning of, 392. 

Togwotee pass, 398. 

Tool-box, 411. 

Topshelfer's outfit, 1, 9. 



43S 



Index. 



Touristi not to carry revolvers, 26. 
Tracking the great stag, 126. 
Trading, 91. 
Trading for Boreas, 89. 
Trading Jack's death, 384. 
Trading Jack's grace, 385. 
Trapper travelling, charm of, 53, 55. 
Trapper, death of the, 15. 
Trapper, the old, gone up, 16. 
Trappers, engaging them, 11. 
Traveller's questions, 25. 
Tricks of wolf poisoners, 269. 
Tricks of fur hunters, 252. 

Unstteveted land, 330. 
Untangling forked lightning, 125, 
Upper Shirley basin, 71. 
U. P. train, 293. 

Usefulness of man relapsing into 
semi-savagery, 293. 

Valet, no man is a hero to his, 294. 
Vicious horses, 45. 
View from peak on the Divide, 194. 
View of the Teton basin, 208. 
Visit ray, to Blaclc Coal, 279. 
Voyageurs Eur Company, 15. 

Wads, 410. 

Waggon-sheet, 408. 

Walton's art in the Rockies, 211, 

214. 
Wanton waste, 150. 
Wapiti, a big band, 127. 
Wapiti antlers, size of, 150. 
Wapiti breaking cover, 129. 
Wapiti, cleaning-time of horns, 412. 
Wapiti, fighting, 127. 
Wapiti, good climbers, 413. 
Wapiti, moving bands of, 139, 141, 

145. 
Wapiti, poorness of skins, 415. 
Wapiti, shedding time, 412. 
Wapiti, stalking of four bulls, 115. 
Wapiti, throwing horn, 231. 
Wapiti, whistling, 82, 123. 



Watching beaver at work, 243, 244 

Water-findina-, 36. 

Watson, Sir T.,401. 

Washakie reservation, 277. 

Weather fine, 198. 

Weight of the bighorn, 162. 

Wengeren Alp in the Rockies, 77. 

West, authors on, 432. 

West, turning it into a cattle-yard, 
232. 

Western humour and lingo, 368. 

Western hunter's idea about game, 
151. 

Western judge, story of, 65. 

Western man, 20, 21, 23. 

Western man acts as his own execu- 
tioner, 28. 

Western man starting into crime, 29. 

Western man's love of trading, 91. 

Western man's achievements, 31. 

AVest, newness of the, 155. 

Western repartee, 19. 

Western waggons, 39. 

Western woman, a, coup, 883. 

Western woman's the, savoir faire^ 
382. 

Whistle of the Wapiti, 82. 

Whistling of the Wapiti, 82, 123. 

Whiskey tales, 6. 

Windfall, corralled in a, 201- 

Wind River Mountains, 50, 397. 

Wind Eiver Mountains scenery, 194. 

Wind River, Indians crossing the, 
273. 

Wintering in Teton Basin, 222. 

Winter of 1880, 34. 

Wolves, poisoning of, 268. 

Woman, respect shown to, 28. 

Work of the evening, 62. 

Wyoming, climate of, 409. 

Wyoming, size of, 397. 

Yellowstone, the, 195. 

Zoological collections in England, 
422. 



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